Big Book of Ohio Ghost Stories

Introduction

I can still remember those immortal words someone said to me when I was thinking of moving to Ohio and wanted to know something about the Buckeye State: I know a lot of people who drive through there.

It’s true, lots of people do drive through Ohio. They’ve been doing it since way back in the days of the old National Road. And when they do, they sometimes leave things behind. In the case of ghost stories, I think that’s exactly why Ohio has an incredibly eclectic mix of traditional and unique tales to share. Allow me to explain.

Everybody loves a good scare, which is one of the reasons why ghost stories have endured for so long. So when groups of people get together, especially in October, the conversation often turns to ghosts. And what happens when someone tells a really great ghost story? It spreads as the people who heard it go on to share it with their friends.

Among the most popular and enduring ghost stories of Ohio, you’ll find the standard legends about the usual ghostly suspects— Bloody Mary, Hookman, crybaby bridges—as well as plenty of spooky tales that are specific to the Buckeye State. With the state’s varied terrain—landlocked to the east and west, water to the north and south, and a swath of plains in the middle—Ohio’s ghosts range from alcohol-smuggling gangsters to pirates to Civil War soldiers to American Indians and even ghostly buffalo.

Over the decade and a half that I have spent researching and exploring Ohio ghost stories, the question I am asked most often is whether these stories are true. Concerning the specific stories in this book, I have made every attempt to validate the names, places, and events discussed. But allow me to be frank for a moment: we’re talking about ghost stories here. This means that, try as one may to stick to the facts, eventually one is sliding down a slippery slope into rumors, hearsay, and statements that can’t be corroborated. All I can tell you is that I have looked into the eyes of the people who have shared their ghost stories with me, and these people seem to earnestly believe they have seen or experienced something. Whether or not they have encountered ghosts is up to you to decide.

But the validity of the stories was not the deciding factor as to which ones went into this book. I wanted to include the ones that I hoped might give you a chill or two . . . and maybe cause you to rethink whether that noise you heard in the next room was just the house settling or might be something otherworldly.

So with that in mind, on the next dark and stormy night, pull out this book and read a few stories. Reflect on them a moment before turning out the lights; and then, in the darkness, with the wind howling outside and the house creaking oh so slightly, ask yourself, Are these stories true?

You may find yourself unable to give a definitive answer.

Northwest

Ohio

Trouble at Weidler’s Passing

Between the towns of Arcadia and Findlay is an unassuming set of railroad tracks that hundreds of cars driving on County Road 236 pass over on a daily basis. Many of those motorists might be surprised to find out that they are crossing over the spot where one of the oldest reported Ohio ghosts once roamed.

In November 1889, the late-night passenger train from Sandusky to Lima was traveling along these tracks, following the route it had taken many times before. As he often did, conductor Jimmie Welsh was walking from car to car. As the train reached the area known as Weidler’s Passing, several of the passenger cars became detached from the locomotive with a violent jerking motion, which caused Welsh to fall from the train onto the tracks below. He probably barely had time to realize what had happened before the second part of the train rolled over him, decapitating him in the process.

Several months after the fatal accident, conductors on the late-night Sandusky-to-Lima train began reporting a disturbing sight. When they were rumbling through Weidler’s Passing, they would see a darkened shape emerge from the nearby woods. As the train passed closer to the shape, it took the form of a man, minus his head. The ghostly figure carried a lantern in one arm, swinging it wildly from side to side. Once the train had passed the figure, the headless ghost would simply turn around, walk back into the woods, and then vanish in a bluish mist.

The first time the figure was sighted, most who saw it were willing to dismiss it as nothing more than moonlight through the trees causing their imagination to run wild. But night after night, whenever a train went through Weidler’s Pass, almost like clockwork, the headless figure would appear with his lantern. Finally, those who saw it had to acknowledge that they were sure it was none other than the ghost of Jimmie Welsh.

But why was he carrying a lantern? Some people say that Jimmie’s ghost was waving the lantern to try to warn other conductors to be careful, lest they meet the same fate that he did. But a more morbid reason given for the lantern is that Jimmie’s ghost was using it while looking for his missing head.

Since it didn’t seem to matter whether people were near the front or rear of the train to be able to see Jimmie’s headless ghost, a few locals apparently got the idea that maybe they didn’t need to be on the train at all. As the story goes, the men hid out near the woods where the ghost was said to appear and waited for the midnight Sandusky-to-Lima train to appear. Sure enough, as the train whizzed through Weidler’s Passing, they saw the shape of a headless man, eerily lit by what appeared to be a lantern in his hand, come wandering out of the woods. Seeing the specter, the men leaped from their hiding spot and ran toward it. Before they could reach the ghostly figure, however, it shot up into the sky and disappeared. Then and there, the men decided they would never go chasing after ghosts again.

It’s been over a hundred years since Jimmie Welsh’s headless ghost was said to have wandered through Weidler’s Passing. A lot has changed over the years too. For one thing, there’s no late-night Sandusky-to-Lima passenger train anymore. And the terrain has changed considerably. Perhaps that’s why there haven’t been any reports of ghostly activity in the area in a long time. But who knows? One night, you just might be driving down County Road 236 when you catch a glimpse of a shadowy shape stumbling out of the woods. And if you do, don’t be surprised to see that the man is missing his head.

The Theater Ghosts of

Bowling Green State University

Originally designed simply as a training facility for teachers, what would become Bowling Green State University was founded in 1910. Today some twenty thousand students attend school here. It is no wonder ghosts have also chosen to take up residence on the Bowling Green campus—the university has, throughout its history, embraced the strange and mysterious.

Case in point: sometime in late September 1946, six Bowling Green students—Gilbert Fox, Richard Harig, Max Hofmeisier, James Limbacher, Earl Mott, and Erwin Potts—each received a mysterious letter instructing him to go to the office of the university’s president at precisely 12:45 A.M. on October 5 for a meeting. No additional information was given, but they were instructed to burn the letters as soon as they had finished reading them.

Unsure exactly what they were walking into, all six students made their way to the president’s office at the appointed time. They learned that the purpose of the meeting, spearheaded by President Frank Prout, was to create a mysterious group that could help raise the level of school spirit at Bowling Green. These six students were appointed as the first members of a secret society called SIC SIC. SIC SIC is still in existence today, and it still consists of six members who spread school spirit throughout the campus and at sporting events, always while wearing a mask. In fact, the members’ identities are revealed only when they are set to graduate . . . and with new masked SIC SIC members ready to take their places. So I guess you could say that people associated with Bowling Green State University sometimes have a flair for the dramatic. The same might be said for the ghosts believed to haunt the campus, which might be why one of them chooses to haunt the theater located in the basement of one of the university’s most recognizable buildings.

Over the years, since it first opened in 1915, University Hall has been home to everything from classrooms to the school bookstore to a gymnasium. In 1960, the recreation hall in the basement was completely gutted and turned into a theater. The following year, the theater was opened to the public and named the Joe E. Brown Theatre, after the Ohio-born actor who, though he never attended any college or university, had adopted Bowling Green as his alma mater. But it’s not the ghost of Joe Brown who is said to haunt the theater. The resident ghost here is said to be that of a former actress named Alice.

Alice’s last name is unknown, but it said that she was at one time a talented actress attending the university. Popular legend has Alice meeting her tragic end on stage while portraying the role of Desde-mona, one of the central characters in Shakespeare’s play Othello. As Alice stood in the spotlight, part of the rigging high above the stage came loose, crashing down and killing her. Another variation of this story has Alice dying not on stage, but in a car accident while she was on her way to the theater to collect her actress of the year award.

However Alice met her untimely end, her ghost appears to have made the Joe E. Brown Theatre her home. Good luck trying to see her, though. Alice’s ghost seems to have developed a bit of stage fright since moving into the theater, so she is rarely seen. On occasion, people have reported feeling cold chills and breezes moving through the theater. But more often than not, Alice only makes her presence known if someone does something she doesn’t approve of. That’s why it has become a tradition at Bowling Green that before every opening night, Alice’s ghost is officially invited to the performance. If this is not done, legend has it, Alice’s ghost is not going to be happy about being slighted and will go out of her way to make sure that the performances don’t go off without a hitch. Over the years, Alice’s ghost has been blamed for power failures, stage sets not working as planned, and even actors and actresses forgetting their lines.

When things were going well at the Joe E. Brown Theatre, Alice’s ghost would sometimes go for a little stroll. For many years, there was a second theater in University Hall—the Eva Marie Saint Theatre, named after the award-winning actress and Bowling Green alum. It was believed that on occasion, Alice’s ghost would wander over to the other theater to check in on things. For the most part, Alice’s arrival at the Eva Marie Saint Theatre was signaled by some of the seats being moved from the up to the down position, as if someone were preparing to sit in them and watch what was happening up on the stage. In 2012, the Eva Marie Saint Theatre was relocated to the Wolfe Center for the Arts. As of this writing, there’s no word yet as to whether Alice’s ghost decided to make the trip across campus to check out the new digs. But perhaps she’s just letting the university thespians get in some practice before she goes over to critique them.

Euler Road’s Crybaby Lane

Ghost stories and violent deaths tend to go hand in hand. And with good reason. Many paranormal researchers believe that when a violent death occurs, it can sometimes leave behind an imprint of sorts that can continue to be seen long after the event has happened. Such is the case with Crybaby Lane, located just outside the limits of Bowling Green.

Euler Road feels no different than any other road in Ohio. That is, until you reach the stretch that runs between Potter and Wingston roads. Here, the trees alongside the road seem to be reaching out for you, and with every turn, they appear to be inching closer and closer to your car. Some of the branches of the larger trees stretch out over the road, creating a living canopy that also can cause a subtle sense of claustrophobia. One look around you, especially in the dead of night, and you can see why the locals believe this road to be haunted.

The reason for the haunting is so brutal, so senseless, that it often makes people uncomfortable just talking about it. But it is here, according to legend, that a young woman committed the unspeakable crime of killing her own baby by hanging it from one of the tree branches that stretch across Euler Road. People have reported hearing the strange cries of a baby coming from the woods around Euler Road.

Some even say that on cold nights when the wind blows across the road, you can look up and see the ghostly body of that poor baby hanging from one of the tree branches—a horrible sight, to be sure. And something to consider before taking a late-night drive down Euler Road.

Holcomb Road’s Ghostly School Bus

When discussing ghost stories, folklorists often use the term legend tripping to describe a sort of rite of passage in which adolescents gather together in a group to visit haunted locations. These locations more than likely have long-standing ghost stories associated with them, even though the specifics surrounding the events leading to the hauntings are often vague. Once at the site, one or more of the youths in the group are often dared to perform some sort of action or ritual, such as flashing their headlights or calling out the ghost’s name, in an attempt to make the ghost appear. It’s usually all done in good fun, and the story may be handed down from generation to generation.

In Northwest Ohio, one of the most popular places to go legend tripping is on Holcomb Road, just outside Bowling Green, at the point where the road is enveloped on either side by thick, dark woods. For years, a legend has been circulating concerning these woods and an ill-fated bus ride. It is said that one afternoon, a school bus full of children was coming down this road when it suddenly left the road and crashed into a tree. Some even say the driver did it on purpose. At the moment of impact, the driver was killed when he was thrown from the bus and slammed face-first into a tree. Moments later, the bus erupted into flames, killing everyone inside before help could arrive.

Ever since that horrible accident, visitors to the site swear that by parking your car near the fateful spot of the accident and flashing your headlights three times, you can make a ghostly school bus appear. It takes the form of a single white light, said to be the bus’s headlight, which appears in front of you and comes racing down the road toward you. When it reaches the exact spot where the bus left the road and hit the tree, the light simply blinks out and vanishes. Even those who have tried flashing their lights but were unable to get the ghost to appear have still reported strange things occurring inside their cars, such as cell phones behaving erratically and car radios changing stations on their own or emitting weird sounds. Once the cars leave the area, however, all these devices return to working normally.

Several daring souls have even decided to leave their cars and enter the woods (although this is not recommended because it is private property and this is considered trespassing). They reported seeing strange lights moving through the woods, always just out of their reach, as well as the overwhelming feeling of being watched and the occasional sighting of glowing red eyes. Weirder still, some claimed to have seen the face of a man appear in one particular tree, said to be the tree the bus driver hit when he was ejected from the vehicle.

Many locals, when asked about the legend, laugh and say the stories were created simply to scare teenagers in an attempt to keep them from parking on the road. Indeed, there are no records of a school bus ever crashing here. Still, none of this has deterred the legend trippers from making their pilgrimage to Holcomb Road. Perhaps that’s because being brave enough to make the trip to a supposedly haunted locale is the most important part of legend tripping.

Murder at the Old Potter House

Most people can probably point out the location of their local neighborhood haunted house, a spooky, old abandoned building where all sorts of dastardly deeds were supposedly committed. This is the place where teenagers dare each other to step over the threshold and challenge the ghosts, the one house where you’ll cross the street rather than walk in front of it on Halloween night. It seems as if every town in America, no matter how big or small, has its own haunted house. And for the residents of Bowling Green, that was the Potter House, named for the road it faces, Potter Road.

For many years, because of rumors that the unspeakable had happened here in the 1970s, this old house sat abandoned and exposed to the elements. According to legend, a family was living here that seemed to be very happy. That is, until the night the father murdered his wife and children. It is said that after the crime, he either buried the bodies in the barn or hid them in a nearby field. When that was done, he took his own life.

Obviously, a house where multiple homicides and a suicide took place isn’t going to be a hot commodity. But people apparently did try to live in the house. However, it didn’t take them long to discover they were not alone. Objects throughout the house would move on their own accord. Sometimes it would be very subtle, like a glass moving across the kitchen counter. Other times, it would be quite violent, with kitchen cabinets flying open or dishes being smashed against the wall. On top of that, the disembodied voice of a woman, believed to be the murdered mother, would cry out, often calling people by name. It also was common to hear what sounded like people walking up and down the main staircase, even though no one was there. After a while, it became clear to the owners that no one was ever going to be able to live in the house, and they decided to just leave it abandoned.

In 2003, Potter House was intentionally burned to the ground as part of a training exercise by the local fire department. Nothing remains of it today, but the barn and a small outbuilding still exist on the property. Even though the house is long gone, people still report ghostly activity taking place on the property. It is said that you can sometimes catch a glimpse of a figure all in black walking or floating from the nearby field toward the spot where Potter House once stood. Some say it is the ghost of the mother who was killed here, while others, noting the figure’s black attire, claim it is something even more sinister. To date, no one has been sufficiently brave to stick around long enough to find out exactly what this mysterious figure wants.

The Legendary Elmore Rider

While it might not be the most well known in Ohio, the ghost story associated with the tiny town of Elmore is certainly one of the longest enduring. Originally known to locals only as The Light, the story has spread across the entire state and is now known as The Elmore Rider. Why did this story endure and spread across Ohio? Simple. Since the central character in the story is a headless specter riding a motorcycle, it was really only a matter of time before it spread far beyond the boundaries of Elmore.

The earliest versions of the story are said to date back to the 1920s. The strange thing, though, is that they made no mention of a motorcycle or any other specifics concerning what the light was or why it appeared. It was described as appearing in the middle of a bridge, fluttering around a bit, and then moving off the bridge to the west, where it would disappear inside an abandoned house. Apparently, people could see the light year-round. They just needed to be there at the right time.

As the years rolled by, elements were added to the story. The house that the light disappeared inside of was now said to be haunted, and the light was purported to be the spirit of a man who had committed suicide by hanging himself inside the abandoned house. All the while, people were flocking to the bridge and unsuccessfully trying to chase the light down.

The current version of the legend, and the one that is the most developed, can be traced back to the 1940s. According to this version, around 1915 or 1916, while most of the world was engaged in World War I, a local boy was falling deeply in love with a girl from Elmore. The boy was a motorcycle enthusiast, and the couple could usually be seen riding on the backroads around Elmore on the boy’s motorcycle. Most thought it was only a matter of time before the couple would be married.

All that changed, however, when the United States entered the war in 1917. Wanting to defend his country, the young boy enlisted in the army and was immediately sent overseas. The entire time he was overseas, the boy never missed an opportunity to send his girlfriend a quick note or letter, professing his love to her and reminding her that he was counting the days until he could be back in her arms again.

In November the following year, the war finally ended. It was several more months before the boy returned to Ohio. But when he finally set foot in Elmore again on March 21, he walked into his house, threw down his bags, and then hopped on his motorcycle and sped off down the road to see his true love.

When he arrived at her house, he paused barely long enough to turn off the motorcycle before running toward the front door. Bursting through the door, the boy was shocked and horrified to find his true love in the arms of another man. He stood there, frozen with rage, for several seconds before stumbling out the door and back to his motorcycle. He started it, gunned the engine, and then took off down the road at a high rate of speed. Whether because of the speed or the fact that he was blinded with rage, as the boy drove his motorcycle over the bridge that crosses Muddy Creek, he lost control and crashed into a farmer’s barbed-wire fence, decapitating himself in the process.

As the story goes, for several years after the tragic accident, residents refused to speak about the incident. It seemed they wanted simply to forget it once and for all. But then the locals started whispering to each other. Some claimed they had gone to the site of the tragedy on the anniversary of the boy’s death, March 21, and had seen a ghostly light they believed was from the headlight of the headless boy’s motorcycle. What’s more, they said, if you parked your car on the far side of the bridge and flashed your headlights three times, the ghostly light would appear to come around a bend in the road and begin traveling toward the bridge, disappearing without a sound halfway across it. This could be done as many times as you wished; the ghost light would always appear, just as long as it was March 21.

As you can imagine, as the ghost story spread, people from all over Ohio began descending on Elmore to try to catch a glimpse of the headless motorcycle ghost. At first they showed up only on March 21, but soon people were coming at all times of the year. And while many claimed that they indeed had seen the light, many others said they had not.

In 1968, area resident Richard Gill decided to try to get to the bottom of this ghost story. So on March 21, he and a friend ventured out to the bridge to conduct a few experiments. Armed with video and audio equipment, as well as still cameras, they parked their car and began flashing their headlights three times. To their amazement, a bright light not unlike the headlight of a motorcycle appeared in the middle of the road and came toward them. Just as the light reached them, it blinked out.

Intrigued, Gill and his companion tried to discern if there was any mass to this mysterious light by stretching a piece of string across the road, then returning to their car and flashing their lights three times. As if on cue, the light appeared again and started its journey toward the car. It passed through the area where Gill had put up the string, and then simply vanished. The two men wasted no time in running back to the spot in the road where the string was. When they arrived, they were shocked to find that the string was still intact and hanging across the road, even though they had both seen the light appear to go right through it.

By this point, Gill was about ready to pack it in and call it a night. But his friend wanted to try one last experiment. He was going to stand in the middle of the road to see if he could get a closer look at the phantom light.

After locating a spot in the road that both men agreed they had seen the light pass by, Gill’s friend stood there, facing the direction from which the light had originated. Gill, meanwhile, returned to the car. Once he was sitting in the driver’s seat, he took one more look at his friend and then flashed the headlights three times.

As it had before, the light appeared and began its journey down the road toward the car . . . and the man standing in the middle of the road. As Gill watched, he saw the light continue straight through the spot where he knew his friend to be standing, vanishing shortly afterward.

Once the light had blinked out, Gill jumped from the car and ran up to the spot in the road where he had left his friend standing. But his friend was no longer there. Terrified, Gill was eventually able to locate his friend lying alongside the road, appearing dazed and confused. When Gill asked him what had happened, he recalled seeing the light appear, but he could not remember what happened immediately after that. The next thing he knew, he was in a ditch alongside the road.

Needless to say, both men had had enough at this point. Besides, they had all sorts of audio and video recordings to go through, as well as photographs they had snapped during the course of the night. After returning home, however, both men were shocked to find that despite all the strange things they had encountered that night, absolutely nothing showed up on the recordings. Likewise, when the photos came back from being developed, they showed nothing out of the ordinary.

Once word of the men’s experience spread, people began flocking to the bridge to see if they could have their own ghostly encounter. Allegedly, it got so bad that police had to close off sections of the road every time it got near March 21. However, most people couldn’t wait for March 21 to roll around again and ventured out there at all times of the year.

But memories tend to fade with time, and once the roads around Elmore began to be repaired and updated, the surrounding terrain changed. All of this created confusion as to where the exact location was where one could summon the Elmore Rider. Today you can talk to five different people and get five different exact locations, so trying to find that spot can result only in frustration.

But if you should find yourself driving along a deserted stretch of road outside Elmore on March 21, go ahead and pull over for a second. Quickly flash your headlights