Brookside: preservation by stewardship

1944 — 2013

Brookside stands at 2701 Spring Street, on a low hill above its own artificial lake, and it is the most documented haunted house in Fort Wayne precisely because almost everything about it except the ghost is a matter of hard record.

John Henry Bass (1835 to 1922) came to Fort Wayne in 1851 and in 1859 founded the firm of Bass and Force, later the Bass Foundry and Machine Works, which cast railroad car wheels and built Corliss engines and boilers and made him, by the Fort Wayne Daily News's 1913 reckoning, the richest man in the city. His town house stood at Fairfield Avenue and Berry Street. Brookside was the country seat. The National Register nomination records that the artificial lake was dug about 1882 and that in that year Bass built a wood-framed vacation house on the site, to plans by the Fort Wayne firm of Wing and Mahurin, a $15,000 project; the same firm enlarged it in 1887 to the floor plan the house still keeps. The first Brookside's date is genuinely disputed in print: Michael Hawfield's News-Sentinel history gives the original house as built in 1887, and Haunted Rooms' guide and the Wikipedia article on the mansion give 1889. All three datings are carried here; the Register nomination, the only one of the three built from the owner's own records, gives the 1882 cottage and the 1887 enlargement.

What is certain is how the first house ended and what replaced it. On February 11, 1902, fire, set off by a gas explosion in the basement, destroyed the house down to its foundations. Bass rebuilt at once, with Wing and Mahurin again, on the same floor plan but in materials meant to settle the question: masonry bearing walls, reinforced concrete floors, rock-faced sandstone outside, and a roof of red glazed ceramic tile. The rebuilt house, finished in 1903, runs to thirty-three rooms and about 24,000 square feet. Bass died at Brookside in 1922, hailed as Fort Wayne's greatest industrialist. His wife Laura lived until 1935. In 1944 the Basses' daughter sold the house and more than sixty-five acres to the Sisters of Saint Francis of Perpetual Adoration, who moved their college from Lafayette, where they had founded it in 1890, and made Brookside its centerpiece.

The mansion served the college as its library for more than sixty years, until the library moved out in 2006. The National Register of Historic Places listed it on June 2, 1982. A restoration completed in 2010 returned the painted ceilings and stencils and converted the house to the university's administrative offices, including the president's office, and each December the University of Saint Francis opens it decorated for its Christmas in the Castle tours.

The ghost belongs to the library years. Haunted Rooms' Fort Wayne guide, revised in November 2026, reports that Bass himself is "said to help people find books" in his old house. Fort Wayne Magazine's list tells the same story with the polish worn differently: "If you are in the library, Bass will help you find the book you desire. Sounds innocent enough except Bass will literally throw the book at you." Haunted Rooms itself notes that the legend is repeated even in the Wikipedia article on the mansion. The two tellings, a librarian's ghost who fetches and one who throws, mark the story as living folklore rather than reportage. No named witness, date or incident is attached to either version, and none has surfaced since. The detail that gives the tale its present shape is documentary, not supernatural: the library left Brookside in 2006 and the restored house reopened in 2010 as offices, so the helpful ghost's workplace no longer exists. He is a library ghost in a building with no library, which is perhaps why the story needs no witnesses. It is a memory of the room as generations of Saint Francis students used it, kept in circulation by list articles, and it is recorded here at exactly that weight.

Sources:

1. National Register of Historic Places, Inventory Nomination Form for the John H. Bass Mansion (Brookside), prepared 1979 to 1982, National Park Service: the lake of about 1882, the 1882 wood-framed vacation house and its $15,000 cost, the 1887 enlargement, the fire of February 11, 1902, the fireproof rebuilding on the same floor plan, Bass's 1851 arrival and the 1859 founding of Bass and Force, his death in 1922, the 1944 acquisition by St. Francis College.
2. "John H. Bass Mansion," Wikipedia, citing the National Register (reference number 82000056, listed June 2, 1982) and the University of Saint Francis (accessed 2026): the 1889 date for the summer home, the hand-carved sandstone, the residence years 1902 to 1944, the Sisters' 1944 purchase of the house and more than sixty-five acres, the mansion's service as library and residence.
3. Haunted Rooms, "Haunted Places in Fort Wayne, IN" (revised November 2026): the 1889 building date, the 225-acre farm, the gas explosion and fire of 1902, the library until 2006, the 2010 restoration, the president's office today, the ghost "said to help people find books," and the note that the legend is repeated on Wikipedia.
4. Michael Hawfield, "Bass Home Built on Industries," News-Sentinel archives, August 1, 1994: the original Brookside dated 1887, the 1902 gas line fire, the thirty-three rooms, Brookside as "The Castle" and the Saint Francis library.
5. "Christmas in the Castle Continues Bass Family Tradition of Hospitality," Today's Catholic, December 10, 2019: completion in 1903, 24,000 square feet, 2701 Spring Street, John Bass's death in 1922 and Laura's in 1935, the daughter's 1944 sale, the library until 2006, the 2010 restoration and administrative offices, the annual public tours.
6. Fort Wayne Magazine, haunted places list (fortwayne.com, accessed 2026): the second telling, in which Bass throws the book.
7. Fort Wayne Daily News, February 8, 1913, as collected by the Allen County Genealogical Society: Bass as the richest man in Fort Wayne, his foundry begun at Van Wert more than half a century before.