HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
An 1881 Montpelier courthouse tied to the sensational 1897 Brewster murder trial, with long-running staff reports of unexplained sounds
65 State Street, Montpelier, VT 05602
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to view from State Street. This is a working courthouse; interior access follows court rules and security screening, and is not for casual visiting.
Access
Wheelchair OK
A downtown Montpelier courthouse on State Street with sidewalk frontage; an active government building.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1881 · 1897 Brewster Murder Case · Early Insanity-Defense Trial · Greek Revival Civic Architecture
The Washington County Courthouse stands at 65 State Street in downtown Montpelier. The present building dates to 1881; after an 1880 fire, enough of the exterior walls survived that the structure was rebuilt in Greek Revival form rather than razed.
The courthouse is most often remembered for a single case. On May 29, 1897, Mildred Brewster, a 20-year-old seamstress, and Anna Wheeler, a 17-year-old domestic worker — both connected to a young stonecutter named Jack Wheeler — walked together on Seminary Hill, the rise now occupied by what became Vermont College. Brewster shot Wheeler, who died that afternoon, and then turned the revolver on herself; she survived. The killing and its aftermath became a regional and national newspaper sensation.
Nearly a year later, in the spring of 1898, the case came to trial in this courthouse. Brewster's lawyers argued insanity, citing a family history of mental illness — a defense that was uncommon at the time. The jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity, and she was committed to the Waterbury State Asylum for the Insane. Accounts of her institutional years are inconsistent; she was eventually released into a former nurse's care, moved to Washington State, and lived there until her death at 65. The courthouse remains a working county court building and a fixture of Montpelier's civic streetscape.
Sources
The haunting attached to the Washington County Courthouse is anchored to the Brewster trial rather than to any general building lore. Walking-tour narration and local writing describe whispers heard in empty courtrooms, sudden drops in temperature, and the sense of a presence in the building's tower and upper floors, framed as residue of the 1897 killing and the trial it produced.
The accounts do not agree on whose presence it is. Some retellings name Anna Wheeler, the young woman who was killed, as the figure said to linger in the tower. Others attribute the activity to Mildred Brewster, who survived the shooting and spent years institutionalized after her acquittal. The tour-stop versions tend to treat the story as the emotional weight of the case made literal — a sensational, internationally covered tragedy that left its mark on the room where it was adjudicated.
The reported phenomena themselves are unremarkable as ghost stories go: voices, cold spots, and a watched feeling in spaces that are empty after hours. What gives the site its pull is the documented case underneath it, which is well recorded in local history regardless of whether anything walks the building's halls. As an active courthouse, it is a viewing-and-history stop rather than a venue that stages investigations.
Notable Entities
View the 1881 Washington County Courthouse from State Street in downtown Montpelier, the site of the internationally reported 1897 Brewster murder trial. The building is a working courthouse; visitors should treat it as the active government building it is and view from the exterior.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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