Constructed more than 100 years ago in the shape of an octagon, each side of the house is 16 feet in length. From a distance, the house appears to be round, which is the reason local residents refer to it as the "round house."

Although the building has been abandoned for many years, it still commands respect since it is one of the most solidly built and elaborate homes in the area.

Many local people believe that the round house is haunted.

According to local residents, four deaths have occurred in the house. Charles Varguson died there after being kicked by a horse, the teenager daughter of a tenant family died there, and two babies died in the house.

Local stories also tell that a hanging occurred in the house and that an axe murder took place in an attached woodshed.

"I once heard my mother say that one room in the house was haunted," Victor Cott, of Forksville, said, "She lived there with her folks when Dr. Chaffee owned the house."

Exact dating of the building is difficult to determine. The nails used in construction and the style of architectural design suggests the late 1860’s.

SOLD LAND

The land, a tract of 133 acres, originally belonged to William Glidewell, who sold it to a wealthy Philadelphian named John Marsden. The property at this time (1858) had a log house on it. When John Marsden died, the land was willed to his son, William Marsden.

William Marsden courted the daughter of a local family named Whitely, who lived in a small octagon-shaped house, which is still standing today on the Dick McCarty farm, Forksville RD.

When William Marsden married the Whitely girl, he built a larger, more elaborate version of his father-in-law’s octagonal home for his wife on the Marsden land.

The estimated cost of the Marsden home, the same "round house" still standing, was about $3, 300. Anthony Gleockler, a local cabinetmaker and carpenter, is believed to have built the house.

HACKED BEAMS

The beams underneath the house were so huge that tenants over the years hacked parts of them away for firewood. These same beams are still holding the house up.

Floor boars were made of oak, and the trim inside was made from oak or walnut. Two sets of French doors were built on the first floor, opening onto a circular-surrounding porch.

A cupola topped the dwelling. It had windows on all sides overlooking the village and hillsides. A circular stairway still leads up into the cupola. It is here that the undocumented hanging is said to have taken place.

Victorian gingerbreading was used under the eaves, and the cupola roof and catwalk are made of solid copper.

CHANGED HANDS

William Marsden later sold the property to Thomas McCadden. It changed hands several times and later became the property of the owner most local residents remember, Dr. Chaffee.

"My mother-in-law worked for Dr. Chaffee back then, " said Bessie Brown, of Forksville. "it would have been around 1886."

Dr. Chaffee and his family later moved to Towanda but kept the round house for a summer home. They rented portions of the house to local families, keeping only a few rooms for themselves.

Several local families occupied the house at various times over the years. A transient farm worker once spent a single night in the house and told the owners at the next farm that he hadn’t slept well there because "the bed danced all night."

The house today lends itself well to the legends of haunting. Its once blue paint has been weathered to a toneless gray. The porches and summer kitchen are gone, leaving only scattered foundations.

Torn and rotting lace curtains hang from paneless windows. Cupboard doors hang a jar, and plaster and wallpaper crumble from the walls.

The interior of the house is confusing. Each room is connected to the room next to it, none of the rooms being square in shape. The closets are triangular, and the walls appear to be slightly off center, producing a momentary vertigo upon entering the house.

Barn swallows have nested over the windows frames. Abandoned in an upstairs bedroom is an old parlor stove.