Monday, April 18, 2016

Woodruff Fontaine House

Woodruff Fontaine House
This old mansion is a museum that offers tours today. It was originally built in 1870.

Amos Woodruff came to Memphis, Tennessee in 1845. He was a carriage maker that made his fortune fast. He then delved into a variety of other enterprises.

All were successful. He ran two banks, a railroad, and a hotel. He had a hand in construction and the lumber and cotton industries.

A leading member of Memphis society he ran for mayor twice. He had a fancy mansion built for his family in 1870. It was in the French Victorian style with Mansard roofs, arched windows and stately columns on the porch.

A carriage house, courtyard fountain, elaborate gardens and a sweeping front lawn surrounded his new mansion.

In 1871, his daughter Mollie married in the home. She became Mollie Fontaine Henning and inherited the property when her father died. None of her children lived to adulthood. She lived in the mansion until she died.

Her ghost is one of three that haunt the home to this day.

Another successful family by the name of Fontaine moved into the mansion. Noland Fontaine was a cotton baron.

In 1929 the mansion became an antique shop and then in 1959 an art school moved in. By 1961, the once grand mansion was in desperate need of repairs.

A local Memphis preservation society (APTA) came to the rescue. They restored the mansion and opened the Woodruff Fontaine Museum in 1964.

Mollie Woodruff Henning

Rose Room named after patterned
wallpaper in room.
It was around this time that Mollie Woodruff Henning’s ghost became more active. She often hangs out in her old bedroom, known as the Rose Room, on the 2nd floor.

She is known to sit on the bed leaving dents so people know she was there. Since the Rose Room is roped off to tours no one is allowed close to this bed.

Visitors have seen the rocking chair move in this room and the bed covers rustle. It is here where people note drastic changes in the temperature.

Indent in bed in Rose Room.
Lights go on and off in this room as well as the rest of the mansion without explanation.

Mollie’s ghost startled a museum docent one day when she appeared in the Rose Room. She informed this lady that she preferred the furniture in the room be placed back in its original arrangement.

Her ghost wanders throughout the mansion. She likes to follow people that are doing something different or interesting. One paranormal team investigating the mansion went down into the basement.

Evidently Mollie followed them for they captured her voice on one recorder. She told them that she rarely went into the basement.

Unlike Mollie, who is a friendly ghost, another entity in the mansion is an angry male. He ripped off the necklace from a staff member one day and his negative spirit is sensed on both the 1st and 3rd floors.

A paranormal team caught his gruff voice during one EVP session. He answered “no” to their questions. His ghost has not been connected to anyone who once lived in the home.

Yet another male ghost in the home is believed to be the Fontaine’s son. Another docent who works for the preservation society saw his ghost one Sunday afternoon when she was the only one in the mansion.

Elliot Fontaine
As she made her way up to the 3rd floor she spotted a man sitting at the foot of the stairs that lead to the 4th floor tower room. He was so lifelike she at first thought he must be a man that found himself locked in the mansion after a tour.


But when she looked closer she realized he looked just like a photograph she had seen of the Fontaine son, Elliot. Frightened she backed down the stairs and closed her eyes. When she looked once more he was gone.

2 comments:

WFM2017 said...

I am currently on staff at The Woodruff Fontaine House Museum. While we appreciate the public's interest and the ever increasing popularity of social media with blogging, etc., we would also very much appreciate the material that is being distributed to the public be factual and accurate. The mansion was first home to Amos Woodruff and his family, as mentioned, however, it was Mollie Woodruff that got married in the home in 1871, not Mollie Fontaine. Mollie Woodruff then became Mollie Wooldridge. Eight years after losing her first husband, Egbert Wooldridge, she remarried James Henning, hence she is often referred to as Mollie Woodruff Wooldridge Henning. There was never anyone related to the families of the mansion named Mollie Fontaine Henning. It seems as though the two Mollies have been confused and blended. There was only one family named Fontaine that ever lived in the mansion. Mr Noland Fontaine purchased the mansion from the Woodruffs in 1883. They also had a daughter named Mollie who would marry Dr. William Taylor in 1886. They lived across the street at 679 Adams Avenue; and Mollie Fontaine Taylor lived there until her death in 1939.
The Fontaine Family made the mansion their home until Mrs. Virginia Fontaine's death in 1928. It was shortly thereafter it became a part of a growing art academy and operated as such until 1959,. After the art school relocated to Overton Park and became known as the Memphis College of Art, the mansion was abandoned for a short time until the APTA (Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities) took over in 1961 and raised funds for the restoration. We have operated as a public museum since 1964. We hope this will clear up some of the misinformation provided in this blog.
And yes, we do believe that Mollie Woodruff Wooldridge Henning and a few other "former residents" do indeed still call the mansion home!

Virginia Lamkin said...

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