The Bush House Museum

Posted: 07.07.2025 | Updated: 10.11.2025

Owners may come and go, but memories live on forever, especially at the Bush House Museum, a historically preserved treasure for the community of Salem, Oregon. Its spacious rooms showcase both past and present with their period-style architecture and diverse artistic exhibits by local artists. However, before that, it was a family home where many of its former owners spent their final days, filled with heartache. 

Rumor has it that while the Bush house may now be a museum, it’s still a home, where the presence of its former tenants can still be felt. Read on and see what haunts plague the Bush House Museum, leading so many to believe that it’s one of Oregon’s most chilling landmarks.

More chills lurk in Portland, Oregon’s capital, and home to some of America’s most grotesque crimes. Visit our website today for a fully immersive ghost tour and experience them firsthand with Portland Ghosts! 

Take a walk through Portland’s streets, in the shadows of the night, where the restless spirits of victims and murderers vengefully cry out, chills run down your spine, and the memories last a lifetime. Don’t forget to also check out our blog for more creepy stories from more of Oregon’s haunted and historic spots. 

Is the Bush House Museum Haunted?

What if a sense of longing could still follow us even after we’re dead? For the Bush family, it was a sense of togetherness they never quite got to achieve in their family home, torn apart even before its construction by death. Now, many believe generations of its former owners reside within its walls. 

History of the Bush House Museum

The historic Bush House Museum was once a private estate built by Asahel Bush in 1878. Bush was a publisher, banker, and political leader who was one of many 19th-century Americans who, driven by Oregon fever, moved to Oregon City from the East Coast over 20 years earlier. He founded the Oregon Statesman (presently known as the Journal Statesman) shortly after his arrival. 

Bush later moved the newspaper to Salem, where it maintained its tremendous political influence, to the extent that for the next decade, only Democrats were elected to office. Bush sold the publication in 1863 and retired from the newspaper business, but not without setting his eyes on a new industry; he founded the Ladd & Bush Bank four years later. 

Not all was well on Bush’s 100-acre paradise by the time he had his family home built.   It was complete with what was considered high-end amenities at the time: indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water, central heating, and even ten marble fireplaces. 

With the help of servants, it was the perfect place to raise his four children, if only his wife had lived long enough to walk through its doors with him. Bush’s wife, Eugenia, died at only 30 years old from tuberculosis years earlier. 

Bush’s daughter, Sally, took charge of the property in the coming years, before it was opened to the public as a museum in 1953 under the ownership of the Salem Arts Association. The house — in addition to Bush’s newspaper and bank — still stands today, adorned with numerous period features. 

However, it still maintains a semblance of a home for the Salem community and its artists, displaying a wide variety of artwork exhibits that reflects the community’s diverse culture. Its conservatory, built by Bush for his daughters in 1882, remains Oregon’s oldest greenhouse.

Museum Hauntings 

Whether or not the historic Bush House Museum is haunted has stirred up a long-lasting debate between believers and skeptics; even staff are reluctant to share their own personal experiences. That’s not to say there haven’t been a handful of visitors who have detailed as best they could about what they’ve experienced. 

Some who have walked through the house during operating hours have felt cold spots or seen shadowy figures; there have also been reports of a ghostly apparition of a man walking around.  There have also been reports of hearing voices, more specifically a feminine one, often crying out. It remains unclear as to what this ladylike ghost has tried to say, but it points to another sad piece of history associated with the Bush House Museum, including an urban legend. 

The Bush Barn Art Center is also speculated to be haunted. Originally a barn for the Bush family, a fire ravaged through it in the 1960s. It’s unclear if anything tragic other than the loss of a valuable piece of history happened. However, there have been rumors of inexplicable activity happening, though it’s not clear as to what that may be. 

The youngest daughter

An urban legend holds that Asahel Bush locked his youngest daughter, Eugenia, in the basement of their family home, out of shame for her condition, which we know today as schizophrenia. It’s been long since disproven, with staff stating that Bush did quite the opposite for his late wife’s namesake — taking her to every medical facility possible for the best treatment. 

However untrue the legend may be, many certainly believe the sense of heartache her condition caused in life has bound her spirit to forever roam her family’s estate; possibly others as well. Eugenia, still in her 20s or 30s, ultimately ended up staying at a hospital in Boston, with her father and siblings writing to her often. 

She didn’t return to her family home until after Asahel’s death in 1913. The 52-year-old Eugenia lived in the house for the next 18 years with her sister, Sally, and a nurse before dying at age 70.

Eugenia’s ghostly apparition has since been seen in the home on several occasions, so witnesses believe. She doesn’t appear at the age she was when she died, but rather as a young girl. 

It’s been theorized that she is simply living over the best part of her life, where she truly felt happiness and love. That definitely explains why she is also known for childishly fiddling around with the indicator on the central heating controls. But maybe there is a lot more to the house’s more tragic past that remains in obscurity. 

Haunted Portland

There is more chilling curiosity than frights when it comes to the Bush House Museum. No doubt it’s carried enough sadness through the past two centuries to leave a ghostly stain on the property. But with so much vague detail, and a staff that insists the Bush family has moved on, it’s hard to say for certain. Only time will tell as it remains one of Oregon’s more subtle haunted locations. 

An even bigger horde of spooks and haunts resides a little over an hour south, in the city of Portland; part of what’s rightfully earned it the motto of “keeping Portland weird.” Former home to some of America’s most notorious murderers, a labyrinth of tunnels for human slavery and more, there is a dark aura that encircles this city and makes it a dream destination for anyone in search of a heart-pumping ghost tour. 

Visit our site today and book your own personal experience with Portland Ghosts! Hear the stories of some of this city’s most haunted locations, from the Jantzen Beach Carousel to the White Eagle Saloon. Soak in Oregon’s colorful history with the chance of having your own ghost story to tell! Take a gander at our blog if you’re looking for a good story to chill your bones in the meantime. Stay up to date with us also through Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Sources:

• https://bushhousemuseum.org/
• https://www.willametteheritage.org/bush-house/#:~:text=Built%20in%201878%2C%20the%20Bush,as%20public%20parkland%20in%201917.
• https://www.willametteheritage.org/asahel-bush/
• https://hauntedhouses.com/oregon/historic-bush-house-museum/