The Not-so Witchy Elizabeth Soop

What does the grave of Elizabeth Soop have to do with the Eisenlord House in Detroit? I'll fill you in as inertia allows.

Much of what I research is absolutely happenstance meanderings that have no pattern. This entire several hour gleaning began with a simple search for Rawsonville after similar searches for "Eloise", "Catville" and others failed to bring up anything.

The Northville Record, October 18, 1889

Up popped the brief snippet of Soop Cemetery being located in Rawsonville from The Northville Record from 1889. A nothing mention which conjures up the mysterons of the internet who chase hobgoblins in the wind and whose flitting intellects necessitated me to start my own groups to get away from them.

While I love the ideal of haunted locations and believe that I have had so-called paranormal experiences I also think that they have more to do with psychological reactions to locations and not free-wheeling entities known as ghosts.

Anyhow, Elizabeth Soop was supposedly a witch. She is buried in Soop Cemetery in present-day Belleville and the location is said to be a paranormal hot spot in league with Ganong.

Since I pay $150 a year for these newspaper archives I endeavor, as much as possible, to utilize and give out free information. If said articles say that Elizabeth Soop was a witch then I'll report as much. From all indications from various sources she was a Methodist church-going farmer's wife and later a co-business woman with her husband Frederick and family.

Fred either owned or at least operated several hotels. I don't know the hotel or restaurant business history of Detroit but from the looks of the Eisenlord House in this photo, which was valued at $24,000 and called The Windsor Hotel at the time Fred was its proprietor from the early 1890s until 1895, it wouldn't have been a insignificant investment for a former farmer. He had apparently run a dining hall at the corner of Washington Avenue and State Street previously.

Elizabeth ran the Imperial Cafe with her daughter-in-law Catherine from its inception in 1897 until no later than 1899 when she died.

It might please any devil-seeker to know that she did pass away on Christmas Eve. So very witchy of her.

If you want to know of a real-life bewitching I can speak to that and it has nothing to do with Gundella. Actually, it kind of does. Anyhow...

More on Frederick and the Eisenlord to follow.

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A Dudley Randall Poem in Milestone 2

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Frederick Soop: Not An Equal Opportunity Restraunteer

Detroit Free Press , March 28, 1890 If you don't want to hear a racist tale of a suburban namesake then close your eyes now. As early as 1876 Frederick Soop had left his Belleville farm once again, having done a stint at the Hawkins House in Ypsilanti during the Civil War and the City Hotel in Detroit thereafter, and ventured off to Chatham, Ontario to run the Rutley Hotel , which was conducted as a Temperance House. Detroit Free Press , August 17, 1879 In 1879 he was searching for a good restaurant or small hotel to operate. Eventually he ended up on Washington Avenue near State Street running a dining hall which he ran until around 1890. Detroit Free Press , April 16, 1890 It was in 1888 when the aforementioned racial incident occurred at his dining establishment. It was then that William H. Haynes, a black doctor, sat down with his former classmate S. W. Barkwell for dinner. The men ordered but when the food was served none was placed before Mr. Haynes who, ironically, ha...

The Nankin Township Historical Society

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