Local legends connect us with our history

SANDUSKY

We grow up hearing them around the campfire, then retelling them to frighten our friends.

Some of us have tried to summon the stars of these spooky stories by chanting their names or flashing our headlights.

Whether or not we believe in ghosts, we can't deny their presence in popular culture.

Joel Rudinger, a retired BGSU Firelands professor who has spent much of his career collecting and studying folklore, said local legends tend to have many variations developed over generations. Some remain specific to a particular region, while others migrate across the country.

"Stories change with the times, with morality," he said, sitting in his Huron home with an old book of typewritten tales at least 5 inches thick.

One example is the story of Gore Orphanage, which has split into dozens of variations through the years. Rudinger has documented 33 distinct versions in his research.

One version refers to a wicked administrator who chained children to their beds at night and beat them.

Rudinger said this element developed during the Nixon era, a time of widespread distrust and suspicion of the government.

Some stories are serious and have a factual basis, while others -- like Bloody Mary of Sandusky Bay -- were probably created to teach a lesson. Though it's impossible to verify every alleged haunt or creepy tale, the professor uses a simple criteria to define them.

"If it has continued over time," he said, "it's valid folklore."

Here are a few from the Firelands area:

Bloody Mary of Sandusky Bay

Long ago, an old, hideous witch lived in the waters of Sandusky Bay. The witch would watch fishermen along the pier. One day, she fell in love with a sailor from Huron fishing from his front porch. She longed to become part of his world. Late at night, she knocked on his cabin door, walked in and declared, "I'm going to make myself so beautiful for you!"

The sailor stepped back in horror and cringed. He told the witch he wanted nothing to do with her. But the witch was determined. She came back to him for three nights, each time promising to make herself more beautiful, according to legend.

The witch began trolling the beaches for young girls who were out after 11 p.m., when good little girls were supposed to be in bed. When she found a girl out walking, she reached out of the water and pulled her down to her underground cave. There, in the depths of the bay, the witch would cut off the girl's most striking feature and keep it for herself.

From one girl, she ripped out a pair of beautiful blue eyes. From another, long, flowing hair. It wasn't long before a lot of girls turned up missing.

When the witch felt she had collected enough parts to make herself truly beautiful, she boiled all the pieces in a large pot and poured them over herself.

The witch was radiant. She took a look at herself in the mirror, then rose to the surface to meet her beloved sailor. As the story goes, he fell captive to her beauty. She pulled him to the bottom of Sandusky Bay, where they lived happily ever after.

The story has Frankenstein-like qualities and may have had European influences -- such as the gruesome Grimm's fairy tales. But Rudinger said it was more likely developed to keep young girls from staying out too late.

Orange eyes and the Milan Cemetery

It is said that while walking through the woods in Milan late at night, one can see a pair of large orange eyes staring at you. Some have said the eyes belong to a strange, werewolf-like animal. Others have tried to explain the phenomenon as swamp gas from the natural springs in the woods emitting a strange glow.

The Milan Cemetery and mausoleum, established in 1851, are also thought to be haunted by a couple who died about the same time the cemetery was created.

Ben and Lorena Abbott supposedly guard the mausoleum with their last name carved on the stone. The entrance to the tomb faces away from the cemetery toward a ravine, adding to the mystery because it gives the appearance of planned seclusion, according to a Web site featuring the cemetery. One who dares look inside the small square opening of the plain stone building will see two coffins and a small rocking chair placed between them. Some have claimed they've seen the rocking chair slowly moving back and forth by itself.

And one tombstone, carved in the shape of a cross, glows an eerie orange shade when cars park in front of it and flash their headlights. Ann Basilone-Jones, director of the Milan Historical Museum, recalls driving out with friends in high school to "summon" the glowing tombstone.

"It's almost like it's glowing back at you," she said. "It was kind of funny."

The museum, located on the same street as the cemetery, has experienced its share of haunts possibly spilling over from the cemetery. Basilone-Jones said one of the period homes on the property, built in the 1840s, belonged to a ship captain named Kline.

"My tourguides swear that lights flip on and off, and they feel the floorboards move," she said. "We've had visitors who don't like the feeling of the house and tour guides who won't go in there by themselves."

As for the legend of the "orange eyes," Basilone-Jones said it may have started when Milan was first settled as a Moravian village between 1804 and 1809.

"The original settlers had to board up their houses because there was a lot of wild dogs out there," she said.

Johnson's Island

One of the stories that seems most likely is a tale rooted in history.

It involves a prison camp for confederate soldiers during the Civil War. Johnson's Island, a 300-acre piece of land surrounded by the cold waters of Sandusky Bay, was especially brutal during the winter months to men who hailed from warmer climates, according to the Buckeye State Paranormal and Haunting Investigators.

The camp was designed to hold 1,000 men but actually crammed as many as 15,000 in at one time.

The prisoners lived in barracks with single pine walls to shield them from the wind. Only 12 men ever made it to freedom, according to news reports, and their fate is not known. Today, old stones mark the graves of the thousands who never lived to see their freedom.

As many as 250 soldiers died in captivity on the island, about 3 miles north of Sandusky. Some say their ghosts have been seen roaming the quiet island for years, while a distant bugle calls them to attention.

According to paranormal investigators, Italian workers were hired to dig the stone quarry years ago and suddenly began singing a song many had never heard before: "Dixie." They sang in English, rather than their native tongue. A statue on the island also supposedly turns toward Canada now and then, Rudinger said, as if waiting for help that never arrived.

Gore Orphanage in Vermilion

Another well-known tale seems to have ignited from a kernel of truth, but the legends caught fire over the facts.

The name of Gore Orphanage probably stuck because of the gruesome catastrophe associated with it, but its real name was far more pleasant. (The name of the road, "gore," actually referred to the triangular piece of land where the building was located.)

The Orphanage of Light and Hope was built by the Rev. John A. Sprunger and his wife in 1903 after their orphanage in Bern, Ind., burnt down. It was a non-denominational Christian orphanage that housed up to 120 children. Orphanage volunteers stayed at a nearby mansion built by Joseph Swift in a valley along the Vermilion River.

Some paranormal groups and others who have circulated the legend say the orphanage burnt down when a young boy heading to the outhouse dropped his oil lamp, igniting a blaze. Others say it was an old man who hated children. Still others insist the children themselves burnt it down to get revenge on a wicked administrator who beat them and chained them to their beds.

They claim to have heard the cries of children more than a decade later. Those who dare park along Gore Orphanage Road might find their car covered in dusty children's handprints. Many versions of the story have developed over time, and the true tale is probably the least remarkable of them all, Rudinger said.

The orphanage fell into foreclosure and was shut down in 1916, and some squatters apparently burnt it down by accident while staying there.

Some sources say the myth of Gore Orphanage became entangled with a real tragedy that occurred 40 miles east of Vermilion, in the Cleveland suburb of Collingwood. On March 4, 1908, the Lake View Public School there burned down, killing 176 children and employees. No matter how it happened, the site of the old orphanage and the Swift mansion -- the remains of which still exist -- continue to draw curious ghost-hunters and visitors to Gore Orphanage Road, wondering if they'll hear the screams of children or smell burning flesh.

The actual history is that orphanage did burn down, but had been abandoned for years.

The boyfriend's death or the hook-armed man

Lovers Lane Road, just outside of Norwalk, is supposedly still reeling from a grisly murder years ago.

Norwalk police Capt. Ted Patrick said he isn't aware of any strange activity there, but the area is still a popular parking spot for teens and a good hiking destination.

According to the legend, a girl and her boyfriend were driving down the road on a date when they ran out of gas in a secluded area overrun with trees. Wanting to protect the girl, he told her to wait in the car while he ran out for help. The girl did as she was told. Time seemed to pass slowly, and the girl grew tired and cold.

She heard a dull dripping noise that sounded like slow, heavy rain plopping down onto the roof of the car. She began to worry, but remembered her boyfriend's warning not to leave the car. So she curled up in a blanket in the back seat and fell asleep. Hours later, she was startled by a banging noise on the car window. Frightened, she crouched down by the seat and hid. The knocking continued, followed by the gruff voice of a police officer. He demanded she open the door.

The girl finally complied, unsure of what might happen to her. The officer put his arm around her and told her to come with him to the police car.

"Whatever you do," he said, "don't look behind you."

The girl, though terrified, couldn't resist the temptation to take a peek.

She turned around and saw her boyfriend dangling by a rope in the tree above the car. His throat was slit, and the blood was dripping down onto the car.

In another version, a couple is parked in a car listening to the radio when they hear an alert that a dangerous man with a hook for an arm just broke out of a mental institution and is on the loose. The boyfriend drives away quickly. Later, when he goes to open the car door for his girlfriend, he sees a bloody hook stuck into the side of the door.

James Willis, founder of the nationally-recognized paranormal research organization called The Ghosts of Ohio and co-author of Weird Ohio, said both legends can be traced back to the 1950s, likely as a warning for teens to avoid places like drive-ins and Lovers Lane Road. Similar versions of the same legend are reported throughout the country at scenic areas popular with lovers.

Willis, who grew up in upstate New York near the setting of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, said he's seen a renewed interest in local legends in recent years with the emergence of ghost-hunting shows and spirit-chasing groups.

"What I love about urban legends is they never really die, they just mutate," he said. "You can't really put your finger on where the truth starts and where the story begins."