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Reported phenomena — as catalogued
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Civil War colonel's 1872 Italianate mansion turned infirmary — boot-clomping footsteps, a humming woman, and a child asking for a toy train
720 Ann Arbor St, Flint, MI 48505
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Ghost tour tickets required for Friday night events. Daytime museum visits may have separate admission. Check website for current pricing.
Access
Limited Access
19th-century Italianate mansion with period staircases; uneven historic surfaces; grounds accessible
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1872 · Built 1872 by Civil War Colonel Thomas Stockton · Both Colonel Stockton and his wife died in the house · Repurposed as infirmary and later nursing home · Now Stockton Center at Spring Grove — City of Flint heritage property · Friday ghost tours operating — recognized Flint dark tourism destination
Colonel Thomas Stockton built his Italianate mansion at 720 Ann Arbor Street in Flint in 1872. Stockton was a significant figure in Flint's post-Civil War civic landscape — an officer who had served in the Union Army and returned to Michigan to participate in the expanding commercial and social life of a city being transformed by the lumber industry and early manufacturing.
Both Colonel Stockton and his wife died in the house over the course of their occupancy, a fact that became central to the building's later paranormal reputation. After the family's tenure the property was converted to institutional use: first as an infirmary, then as a nursing home. The decades of medical care and death within the building's walls accumulated a history that the ghost-tour programming now draws on directly.
The City of Flint eventually acquired the property and restored it as a heritage site. The building, renamed the Stockton Center at Spring Grove, functions as a museum during daytime hours and operates Friday-night ghost tours as a regular programming feature. The Explore Flint and Genesee tourism authority recognizes it as one of the county's notable haunted history destinations.
The mansion's Italianate architectural style — bracketed eaves, arched windows, and ornate interior millwork — survived the institutional phases of the building's history largely intact. The period furnishings and the preserved interior spaces create a setting where the building's layered history — Civil War-era domestic life, infirmary care, and nursing home operations — is legible in the physical fabric of the rooms.
Sources
The paranormal accounts associated with the Stockton House fall into four recurring categories, each specific enough to have acquired informal identification in the tour narrative.
The most frequently reported phenomenon is the sound of heavy boot-clomping footsteps — described consistently as a deliberate, weighted tread — moving through corridors when no one is present. The sound is attributed to Colonel Stockton by the building's paranormal tradition, grounded in his military bearing and the practical footwear of a Civil War-era officer.
A second recurring report involves a woman humming softly in rooms that are verified empty when checked. Staff have reported this from multiple areas of the house, and the humming is described as melodic and unhurried — not threatening, but distinctly out of place in a vacant building. This is typically attributed to Mrs. Stockton, though no documented account anchors the attribution to a specific event.
A whistling male presence — heard but not seen — has been reported independently by multiple visitors and staff on the upper floors and in the central hall. And a sighting reported by a visitor involves a child — a young figure appearing in one of the rooms and asking, specifically, for a toy train before disappearing. The specificity of the toy train request is noted in coverage by 99WFMK and is one of the accounts that distinguishes the Stockton House from more generic haunted-home repertoire.
The building's history as an infirmary and nursing home adds a layer below the Stockton-family narrative — decades of illness and death in the building before its current preservation — that the tour programming acknowledges without claiming specific attribution.
Ghost tours of the Stockton House Museum run Friday evenings and cover the Civil War-era history of Colonel Thomas Stockton and his wife, the building's later use as an infirmary and nursing home, and the specific paranormal reports: boot-clomping footsteps, a woman humming in empty halls, a whistling presence, and a sighting of a child asking for a toy train.
Daytime tours of the restored 1872 Italianate mansion cover the Stockton family history, the Civil War period, and the building's evolution from a private home to an infirmary and eventually a public heritage site.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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