Thuds, bumps, and unidentified whispers aren’t strange sounds in old buildings, but at the Bissman building, located at 193 N. Main St., Mansfield, those sounds are strange. They’re strange because they are common occurrences and pale by comparison to some of the more eerie events that unfold, at least according to many of the people who have visited the building and to the Bissman family that owns it.
The building was built in 1886 and shared the same architect as the Mansfield Reformatory, which was built the same year. The Bissman Company was a wholesale grocery distributor, but today the smell of roasting coffee that wafted through downtown Mansfield and the bustling business are gone. The family is still thriving, though. Benjamin Franklin Bissman IV owns the building with his wife Amber and they have two sons to carry on their legacy.
And the ghosts are still doing business on the five floors, each 10,000 square feet of space, including the basement.
The Bissmans host ghost and paranormal tours with help from coordinator Joe James. On a recent tour more than two dozen guests toured the building and attempted to hear from the two most prominent ghosts: a little girl named Ruthie who is purportedly buried in the basement and a former grocery employee named F.W. Simon who, it’s believed, lost his head in the elevator on his last day of work.
The search for ghosts began on the fourth floor and a look in “Ruthie’s room” where she is sometimes active. It then proceeded to the floors below, including the second floor and the elevator shaft where Simon was supposed to have been decapitated by the elevator as he said good-bye to friends on his last day of work.
“A group of 12 people, in the dark, asked her questions for two hours…They asked her how old she was. The K-2 meter blinked eight times….That group has been back six times. They have a connection to this little girl,” said Bissman.
Ben Bissman told the group that the last time he’d heard anything from Simon, he was standing beside the elevator shaft and called out for Simon to make his presence known. Bissman’s cell phone, which had been “dead” for some time, rang.
The tour proceeded to the basement and the large cooler room where Ruthie’s (probably a Bissman) is supposed to have been buried. But there was still no word or sign from any ghosts. The Bissman’s don’t know for sure the eight-year-old girl’s cause of death. Some think she was murdered; others think she died of a disease.
The ghosts’ inactivity did little to detract from the tour. Not only do guests enjoy the anticipation of hearing from the ghosts, Ben Bissman can spin a tale.
There are also a number of interesting historic artifacts on the first floor where the grocery offices were located. There are documents including deeds, a letter from a wayward son, and checks from notables like Louis Bromfield. There’s also an original coffee crate, the walk-in safe, a coffee sampler, and a scale used in the business that was patented in 1867.
Peter Bissman was the oldest of nine children and the family settled in Mifflin in the 1850s after arriving in America from Germany. “They came to America with a boatload of money,” said Bissman. When they moved to Mansfield, they built some of the finest homes on Park Avenue West.
As Mansfield grew, the Bissmans were innovators. They decided to enlarge their delivery radius because local customers didn’t generate the revenue the company hoped for. But teams of horses tire in front of wagons heavy with groceries, so they started stabling teams of horses at their destinations. When they arrived at the end destination, fresh horses were waiting for the return, or next leg of the trip.
“Then the Model T truck came along,” said Bissman, “but there were only horse trails and the wooden wheels of the trucks broke on the rutted roads. And the horse stables were converted to fueling depots.” Model As came next and finally semi-trucks served as haulers until the business closed in 1976.
The Bissman building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and proceeds from the tour are used to maintain the building’s architectural integrity. Most recently, they had to make repairs when an upstairs pipe broke and water poured through the building for seven hours before the water was noticed gushing from the building.
Bissman pointed out the wear on the purple slate stairs leading into the building, noting the evidence of a booming grocery business. Today those steps mainly only get the tread of ghost hunters and history seekers. More visitors will arrive on November 16 when the Bissman’s host their next tour.
