The Slave Dealer of Ebenrain: A Tormented Spirit within the Shadows of Sissach

January 15, 2026

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Meant to be a peaceable summer season residence in Sissach, outdoors of Basel in Switzerland, the Ebenrain Fortress become a haunted one after considered one of its former inhabitants continues to be haunting it.

Within the peaceable city of Sissach, nestled amid the comfortable hills and dense forests of Baselland, stands the elegant but somber Ebenrain Fortress. Constructed as a summer season residence for the wealthy and rich from Basel metropolis in 1774–1776, it’s thought-about probably the most important late baroque residence in northwestern Switzerland.

At present it serves as a venue for artwork exhibitions, live shows, and cultural occasions, however behind its grand Baroque façade lingers a chilling story — considered one of guilt, scandal, and stressed spirits.

Learn extra: Try all ghost tales from Switzerland

The ghost stated to hang-out this stately property is none aside from Johann Rudolf Ryhiner-Streckeisen, a rich Basel service provider whose checkered previous and tragic finish forged a protracted, eerie shadow over Ebenrain.

Meant to be a peaceful summer residence in Sissach, outside of Basel in Switzerland, the Ebenrain Castle turned into a haunted one after one of its former inhabitants is still haunting it. — **Haunted Fortress:** Ebenrain Fortress in Sissach, Basel-Land canton, Switzerland. It’s stated to be haunted by the ghost of a possible slave dealer. // Supply: `Ikiwaner`/ Wikimedia

A Man of Wealth and Sullied Repute

The story of Ebenrain begins with Martin Bachofen (1727–1814), a affluent Basel silk producer who constructed the fort as his nation residence. However it was within the palms of Johann Rudolf Ryhiner-Streckeisen that the property’s most infamous chapter was written.

Ryhiner was a person of appreciable means, but in addition of questionable morals. Whispers surrounded him — not just for his extravagant life-style and tangled private affairs, however for his alleged ties to the transatlantic slave commerce, a grim and unstated stain on Basel’s mercantile historical past. These rumors would cling to his identify, lengthy after his dying.

Confronted with accusations of bigamy — a scandal that threatened to unravel each his private and non-private life — Ryhiner’s world crumbled. On July 29, 1824, he took his personal life with a pistol shot in one of many fort’s stately rooms, abandoning a legacy of disgrace and whispered curses. Two years later, his widow offered the fort to Ludwig Vest, a businessman from Liestal.

A Stressed Presence within the Nightfall

However dying didn’t silence Ryhiner. In response to native legend, the service provider’s spirit returned to Ebenrain, condemned by his crimes and cowardice to linger within the place of his demise.

At nightfall, when the mist gathers low alongside the fort’s lawns and the night air turns chill, a tall gentleman has been seen strolling via the park. He swings a strolling stick, his posture stiff and his gaze vacant. Some witnesses even declare he’s accompanied by one other vague, shadowy determine — maybe a former confederate, or one of many numerous lives entangled in his darkish dealings.

Those that have wandered the fort grounds after darkish converse of sudden chilly drafts, of unseen palms brushing their pores and skin, and of a bloodstain within the west room — the very chamber the place Ryhiner ended his life — that no servant or proprietor has ever been in a position to scrub away. Even after renovations, it’s stated to bleed via contemporary plaster and paint, a grim, unyielding mark of guilt.

The Weight of an Unquiet Previous

Whereas Ebenrain Fortress at the moment stands as a proud cultural landmark, its ghostly previous endures in native reminiscence. The story of Johann Rudolf Ryhiner-Streckeisen is a reminder of the unstated histories that linger in lovely locations. His stressed spirit is claimed to prowl not for revenge, however laid low with a lifetime of sin and silence — a phantom burdened by the load of lives misplaced and wrongs unrighted.

So ought to you end up within the gardens of Ebenrain because the solar sinks behind the Jura hills, watch the tree-shrouded paths fastidiously. You would possibly simply glimpse a determine in Nineteenth-century costume, cane in hand, eternally pacing via the property he might neither actually possess in life nor go away in dying.

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