Spirits of Australia’s most haunted house rest easy.
Junee is a town with many great facilities, the railway museum and the licorice factory for example. However, over the past years, none have attracted as much tourism as the infamous homestead of Monte Cristo. The Home that has been haunted for decades has closed down following a changing of ownership.
The Original Homestead was owned by Christopher Crawley a man who earned his fortune by investing in the railway system and is often regarded as one of the founders of the Junee. Using his fortune he built a large Victorian-style home a top of a hill overlooking the village, this is what is commonly referred to as the Monte Cristo haunted house. However, the original homestead still exists and would be later used as a servant’s quarters.

The house is widely accepted to be possessed following Christopher Crawley’s passing away from heart conditions in 1910. His wife, Elizabeth struggled to deal with the death of her husband and became a shut-in. She was reportedly only spotted outside the home twice in the 23 years fol-lowing Christopher’s passing away. She died at age 92 due to a ruptured appendix.
Following her death the home would often get vandalised for the valuable items inside the home. Supposedly this would anger the ghost of Elizabeth which is why tourists are most likely to encounter her spirit before the many others possessing the Homestead.

The house remained abandoned for many years when it was bought by Olive Ryan in 1963 who would fully restore the old home.
The Ryans would later turn the home into a museum for tours, including a doll museum and an antique shop. When the Ryans initially moved into the homestead they each had encounters with the supernatural.

Firstly when they tried to move their pets into the home they were resistant often running out as soon as possible and being afraid to come inside.
On a separate occasion, when returning from an evening out they noticed all the lights were on when they approached the house but when they opened the front door all the lights had been switched off.

The strange paranormal activities became more and more active until living in the house went from mildly uncomfortable to unbearable. In one of the more extreme cases the Ryan family came home to find all of their chickens strangled to death and a litter of kittens brutally murdered.
The History of the Homestead is well-documented and tales of the Home and the people that have lived there have become legends in Junee and surrounding areas.
The community hopes to see the old homestead reopen soon as the mystery of Monte Cristo still alludes many.
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