Captain Mulls House, Holly Grove, AR: History and Folklore

Captain Mulls House, also called the Mull House and the Kerr Place, was a two-story house built in Arkansas from 1854 to 1859 near Holly Grove. It no longer stands: a newspaper report transcribed on a local history message board says it had been demolished by November 1987. The house is best known for a legend of a retired sea captain, a glass casket and a ghostly piano, but the sources read for this guide do not support that legend. This guide covers the documented history, the folklore and what may lie behind it.

A short history of the Mull House

The house was built by Benjamin Franklin (B.F.) Kerr in the Holly Grove area of Arkansas. A November 26, 1987 Monroe County Sun report, as transcribed on the Holly Grove Memories message board, says construction began in 1854 and finished five years later, in 1859, one year before the Civil War. A letter of October 1975 from Kerr descendants, also transcribed there, gives the same picture: a house built before the war, in five years of intermittent work, as a replica of Kerr’s home place in Alabama. The letter says it was built entirely by enslaved labor, with lumber hauled by oxen to a sawmill at Indian Bay and furniture bought in St. Louis and shipped by boat. It was built where it stood, in Arkansas. Nothing in these sources says it was moved from anywhere.

Kerr sold the house several years after the Civil War. The 1987 report says the buyer was a Mr. Allen from Helena, and that Thomas Mull Sr. acquired the house and the surrounding land from Allen in 1880. The 1975 letter says only that Kerr sold to a Helena concern, from which “Capt. Mull” obtained the house. The 1987 report adds that it is not clear how Mull actually acquired the property.

Thomas Mull Sr. died in 1923, according to the 1987 report, and left the property to his adopted son, Tom Mull Jr. The younger Mull and his wife lived in the house until 1940, when his job with the Game and Fish Commission took him to Little Rock. The report says they came back for visits for a while and then left one morning with the breakfast dishes still on the table, and that no one knows why. That detail reads as local tradition, and the report does not source it.

Decay and demolition

An August 3, 1983 article in the Sentinel of Clarendon, also transcribed on the message board, reported on the house’s decay. It quoted a member of the family that leased the surrounding farmland, who said Tom Mull Jr. had hired a man to watch over the house for 40 years and that vandals were responsible for the damage. The same account says people drove a truck across bean fields and took a piano out of the house, thinking an empty house belonged to no one. The land was posted against trespassers. By November 26, 1987, the Monroe County Sun reported that the house had recently been demolished and that only a clean spot of land marked where it had stood.

The legend of the sea captain and the glass casket

Online retellings of the Captain Mulls House story say the house originally stood in Florida, in St. Petersburg or St. Augustine, and was moved to Arkansas by a retired sea captain. In that version he lived there with the love of his life, had her body embalmed after she died and kept it sealed in a glass casket in the house. After his death the woman was said to have been buried in a local cemetery, and the sound of her playing the piano was said to drift from the deserted house. These claims are uncorroborated folklore. No source read for this guide mentions a Florida origin, a sea captain, a glass casket or a piano ghost.

What the record says instead

• Origin: built in Arkansas from 1854 to 1859 by B.F. Kerr, not moved from Florida.
• The captain: the 1975 letter calls him “Capt. Mull” without explaining the title. The 1987 report names him Thomas Mull Sr. and gives no sea career. Nothing read ties him to the sea.
• His death: 1923, according to the 1987 report.
• The casket and the burial: not mentioned in any source read. Treat both as uncorroborated folklore.
• How he got the house: the report gives two legends, a poker game and a race between his white horse and a train from Holly Grove to Palmer, and says the real way is not clear. Both are uncorroborated.

The piano: a possible root

The 1983 Sentinel account says vandals took a piano out of the house in the 1980s. A story of piano music in an empty house could have grown from a real piano being carried off, but that link is an inference. No source read reports anyone hearing piano music at the house, and none connects the stolen piano to the ghost story.

Where the sources differ

• The buyer from Kerr: a Mr. Allen of Helena (1987 report) or a Helena concern (1975 letter).
• How Mull came to own it: acquired from Allen in 1880 (1987 report), by poker or a horse race by legend, or unclear.
• Origin of the house: built on site in Arkansas (both sources), against the retellings that say it was moved from Florida.
• Who Captain Mull was: Thomas Mull Sr. (1987 report), or a retired sea captain (retellings, unsupported).

What the record can and cannot support

The sources are three items transcribed on the Holly Grove Memories message board: a 1975 family letter, an August 1983 Sentinel article and a November 1987 Monroe County Sun report. They are transcriptions posted years later, not the original pages, so wording and details may have been altered in copying, and they could not be checked against the newspapers. The 1975 letter is a family recollection written more than a century after construction and passing on what the family had been told. The 1987 report is a local retrospective written when the house was gone. No county record, census entry or photograph of the house was read.

The history of the Kerr and Mull families and the demolition is reasonably consistent across these items. The legend of the sea captain, the casket and the piano ghost is not in any of them. Nothing here confirms a haunting, and nothing disproves one.

Is the house still standing?

No. The 1987 report says only cleared land marked the site, and the 1983 article described the surrounding land as leased farmland posted against trespass. No address is given here and there is nothing left to see, so the stand-in photographs on this page show Phillips County, Arkansas, not the house.

FAQ

Where was Captain Mulls House?

Near Holly Grove, Arkansas, south of town, on farmland. It was also called the Mull House and the Kerr Place. It was demolished by 1987.

Who built it?

B.F. Kerr built it from 1854 to 1859, according to the 1987 Monroe County Sun report. A 1975 family letter says it was a replica of his Alabama home and was built by enslaved labor.

Who was Captain Mull?

The sources identify Thomas Mull Sr., who held the house from 1880 and died in 1923. A sea captain is part of the folklore and is not supported by the sources read.

Was the house moved from Florida?

No source read says so. It was built in Arkansas by Kerr from 1854 to 1859.

Is the glass casket story true?

It is uncorroborated folklore. No source read mentions a casket, an embalmed body or a burial tied to the house.

Is Captain Mulls House haunted?

The ghost story, a woman playing the piano in the empty house, is uncorroborated folklore. A piano was taken from the house by vandals in the 1980s, which may be a root of the tale, but that is an inference.

Is the house still standing?

No. It had been demolished by November 1987.

More haunted houses: For other Southern houses with ghost traditions, see Gaineswood in Demopolis, Alabama and The Bell House.

Sources

• Holly Grove Memories Message Board: Mull place/Kerr place history: transcription of a family letter of October 1975, posted July 10, 2006. A family recollection, read October 25, 2026.
• Holly Grove Memories Message Board: Mull House (Sentinel, Clarendon, August 3, 1983): transcription of a newspaper article on the house’s decay and the vandals, posted January 10, 2007, read October 25, 2026.
• Holly Grove Memories Message Board: Mull House Goes Down in History (Monroe County Sun, November 26, 1987): transcription of a newspaper report on the history of the house and its demolition, posted April 25, 2005, read October 25, 2026.