Watertown's 1904 marble library said to be watched over by founder Emma Flower's family spirit
229 Washington Street, Watertown, NY 13601
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public library; no admission charge to visit the building or the rotunda.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Marble-floored public library with a central rotunda and stairs to upper levels; accessible entrance available.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1904 · Grecian Revival Civic Architecture · Flower Family Legacy · Watertown Public Library
Roswell P. Flower was a Watertown-area businessman who served in Congress and as the 30th governor of New York before his death in 1899. His daughter, Emma Flower Taylor, commissioned a library in his memory as a gift to the city. The cornerstone was laid on July 11, 1903; the building was completed and formally presented to the public on November 10, 1904, and the library opened on January 4, 1905.
The building is faced in marble over brick and was designed in a Grecian style with Roman elements. Its defining feature is a centrally placed octagonal dome that creates a three-story rotunda, the principal interior space. The marble floor of the rotunda carries bronze zodiac signs by James C. Kindlund. Two stone lions, ordered from Italy by Emma Flower Taylor and installed in June 1905, flank the entrance, though they were not part of the original design.
The library has served continuously as Watertown's public library for more than a century and is one of the North Country's most recognizable civic buildings. It holds local history and genealogy collections and has undergone restoration work on its decorative interior. The Flower family's connection to the building, particularly Emma Flower Taylor's role in creating it, remains central to how Watertown understands the place, and that connection carries into its ghost stories.
Sources
The library's ghost story is bound up with its origin as a family memorial. A building raised by a daughter in honor of her father, and closely identified with the Flower women who funded and shaped it, lends itself to the idea that the family never quite left. Local accounts describe an apparition tied to the Flower family seen by visitors, and staff who report the feeling of a presence, the sense of being watched, in quieter parts of the building after hours.
The reports are modest by the standards of more theatrical haunted sites. There are no claims of violence, no documented tragedy in the building, and the phenomena described are limited to a sensed presence and the occasional figure rather than dramatic events. The library does not market itself as haunted, and the stories circulate mainly through regional 'most haunted' features and local folklore rather than through any tour the institution runs.
Watertown's North Country setting, with its long winters and a downtown full of grand turn-of-the-century buildings, gives the tradition room to persist. For visitors, the draw is primarily the architecture, the rotunda and its zodiac floor, with the Flower family ghost story as a quiet local footnote.
Notable Entities
Visit the 1904 marble-faced library Emma Flower Taylor built as a memorial to her father, former New York governor Roswell P. Flower. The central octagonal rotunda, with bronze zodiac signs inlaid in the marble floor, is the architectural centerpiece. Staff describe a sensed presence in parts of the building.
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