Haunted Butler County, Ohio

INTRODUCTION

HISTORY THROUGH HAUNTINGS

It was a dark and stormy night… Actually, it was so long ago, and I don’t know if it was dark and stormy or not, but I always wanted to start a book like that. The beginning of this book came about many decades ago. It was a term paper for a class at Badin High School. I gathered all the local ghost stories and even made hand-drawn maps. I never thought it would become a book years later.

People may ask, What do ghost stories have to do with history? They are a direct link to yesteryear. They are the folklore of the region. They also tie the reader back to the social history of the area at a specific time. The stories are about people, places and events from a distinct era. If someone says they are going to give a history lesson, most wouldn’t really be interested. If someone says they have a ghost story to tell, it catches their attention. To understand a ghost story, one must first learn the history to find out why it is haunted. The more I researched, the more things came to light. Some stories that were lost were found; some stories that people believed were known, weren’t. Throughout this book, I tell the history of the people, places and things from Butler County’s long and sometimes gruesome past. They are what give the details and validity to support the ghost stories. Most of the stories seem to have a basis in fact. The who, what, when or where may have changed and evolved over decades in the stories, but if you dig deep enough, frequently you can find the why behind the hauntings.

MY HOUSE

I purchased a historic home in Hamilton in early 2020. The problem with an old home is leaks, especially if it has a flat roof. So repair work began. During the work, I noticed tools coming up missing, Phillips head screwdrivers and tape measures being the most common. They would show up in places I knew I had looked, places that would have been obvious, like the center of a counter or table. The disappearing and reappearing tools caught my attention because of the man who built the house.

John Spoerl worked in the hardware business for seventy-four years, beginning in 1873, getting his start at the age of fourteen in downtown Hamilton working at the Davidson and Schliep Hardware Store. On their passing, he purchased their shares, becoming the full owner. When Spoerl passed away at eighty-eight in February 1947, he was the oldest hardware merchant in Ohio. It seems appropriate that my tools randomly disappear and reappear.

Other strange things have happened in the house. There are mysterious crashes, where a search of the house reveals nothing has fallen over. It sounds like a bunch of boxes falling. I always try to find a reasonable explanation for any occurrence. I’ll hear footsteps, which I attribute to the house settling, pipes rattling or an unusually fat squirrel walking on the roof. Recently, I had the footsteps approach my bed at night. I just tell myself that it was definitely a squirrel. I have seen shadows cast on walls; those I assume were from car headlights, even if I didn’t see a car. The voices I occasionally hear I think probably came from outside, even though with the thick walls of the house, you can’t really even hear the Pleasant Avenue traffic. One day, I heard coughing from behind me as I was at my computer working; I think that was a previous owner. One event I have not been able to explain was when I had a pizza on the counter and walked out of the room; when I walked back in, I saw the lid open and fall back against the counter ledge. Maybe my ghosts also crave the local favorite, Chester’s Pizza?

CHAPTER 1

NATIVE SPIRITS

Archaeologists believe humans have been in Ohio for around fourteen thousand years. They left behind mounds and earthworks, many of which have been lost to time. These mounds and earthworks were built by the Adena and Hopewell cultures. Most of these works have been lost due to farming, erosion and development. Many were surveyed and descriptions written before they were completely wiped from existence. Many books were written on them, including William Mills’s Archeological Atlas of Ohio, which states that in 1914, there were 221 mounds and 30 earthworks still located in Butler County.

THE ANCIENT ONES OF REILY

Chris Rogers, an avid outdoorsman and hunter, had a hard-to-explain experience while hunting in the woods north of Reily. In the early ’90s, Chris obtained permission to hunt a tract of land that backed up to Indian Creek. During his second year hunting there, he experienced a truly terrifying incident. On a dark, moonless morning around four o’clock, he walked into the woods toward his tree stand, using his flashlight. As he approached the tree line, he turned off the light, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He listened for any telltale sounds of deer or anything in the vicinity. Occasionally he might catch the sound of an owl or coyote; this night, he heard a sound like the beating of wings. He realized it was too rhythmic and lasting too long to be wild turkeys—plus, it seemed to be getting louder. Suddenly, he noticed an eerie red glow in the woods. He realized the beating sounded more drumlike as the glow continued to brighten to the point where it seemed the entire top of the hill was glowing in the red light. The wind kicked up, but strangely, it only seemed to be blowing in the area of the glow, sending leaves flying through the air as the drumbeats continued to get louder. The red glow was casting shadows through the trees that looked like dark arms reaching toward him. The black shadow reached closer and closer…and then, in an instant, everything stopped. No light, no wind, no beating of drums; the only sound was Chris’s heart pounding in his chest as he wondered what had just happened. The entire experience lasted maybe a minute. Chris didn’t move from his spot for over a half an hour and never saw anyone leave the woods. Finally, he decided to walk into the woods to his tree stand, and about ten steps in, he heard the bloodcurdling scream of a hawk. He decided that he had had enough; he’d come back during the day. As he turned to leave, he felt an extremely uneasy feeling having his back to those woods. There was a woodpile nearby, and he sat with his back against it, so he could keep an eye on the tree line. He waited until sunrise, then decided to go back into the woods to see if there were any remnants of whatever he saw and heard. The only thing he noticed was the leaves that had been scattered around by the strange vortex of wind on the hill. He mentioned what happened to the owner of the land. The owner reluctantly said he had seen things in the woods also, and the hilltop was an Indian burial ground. The owner didn’t have much else to say about it, and Chris didn’t press the matter. He continued to come back to hunt the area many times after that incident and never experienced anything else. Reily Township has many Native American mounds and burial sites and two known earthworks stretched along Indian Creek. This must have been an important place for the ancient ones.

Map by J.W. Erwin showing the Great Miami River Valley south of Hamilton with the ancient mounds and earthworks, from Squier and Davis’s Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. Author’s collection.

A portion of William C. Mills’s 1914 Butler County map showing the native sites around Reily Township. Author’s collection.

Rick Fornshell and his buddy Bill were out cruising the country roads of Reily Township, many years ago. As they were talking, Bill, who has Native ancestry, mentioned that it is not a good idea to walk into a certain part of the woods. He said it is sacred land and they don’t want them there. Rick convinced Bill that they had to see for themselves. They hopped a fence and had journeyed about fifty yards when Bill pointed out a large depression in the ground and said, That is not a good place; we are not going that way. They continued in another direction and came upon a large tree with a cavity underneath; the roots formed what looked like a cage. The depression was large enough that someone could lie underneath. Bill believed it was a place a shaman would use to connect to the forest. Suddenly, a crow landed on Bill’s shoulder. The crow let out a loud caw and flew away. It’s time to leave, Bill said. They got up and began walking back the way they came. They walked and walked. They knew they came less than one hundred yards into the woods and walked a lot farther on the way out. They couldn’t find the edge of the tree line or the fence! Rick said, We are out in the woods all the time; we never get lost! Bill replied, We need to say we are sorry and promise to never come back into these woods again. Rick agreed, and they said to the spirits of the woods that they were just curious, that their curiosity had been satisfied and they would not return. As soon as they said this, they turned and saw the clearing from where they had started their journey.

THE CEREMONY

Years ago, three teens were in a farm field where they liked to search for relics. There were some great finds over the years: flint knives, arrowheads of high quality, banded slate banner stones and other items. One evening as darkness fell, something in the tree line separating the farm field from neighboring Joyce Park caught one of the teens’ eye. It was a large bluish-green light that appeared to be moving closer, unwavering in its approach. Unsure what it was, they left—later realizing that they had walked that field many times and it is not the easiest to traverse in the daylight without slipping or falling. It had become night, and the light seemed to be steadily moving toward them. They always assumed there was a village in that area. Years later, one saw a large image of the Great Miami River Valley earthworks at the Ohio History Connection in Columbus. One of the earthworks was in the field they used to frequent. It was a large square and circle with embankments leading to Pleasant Run Creek. Although the earthwork was plowed over decades ago, the path of the light would have been traveling directly toward that structure’s former location. Now the area is farm fields, subdivisions, sports fields and possibly a pathway for ancient spirits repeating a lost ceremony.

James McBride’s survey of an earthwork structure that was located in Fairfield and has since been plowed and built over. It was located in the area near Water Works Park. Author’s collection.

SPIRIT OF THE MYAAMIA

The cornerstone of Miami University’s first women’s dormitory was laid in November 1904. It was named for then vice president of the university Andrew D. Hepburn. Hepburn Hall was dedicated in a grand ceremony in June 1905. Tragedy struck only a few years later in 1908, as flames erupted in the 150-room dormitory. Although the fire left one hundred young women homeless and without their belongings, there were no deaths. The walls were undamaged, and the building was reconstructed within the shell of the structure. The fire was determined to have been caused by wiring on the third floor. It was believed to have been smoldering in the insulation for a couple days, as some girls reported smelling wood burning and others reported their lights weren’t working that day.

Inside Hepburn Hall, 1905. Miami University Archives, Frank R. Snyder Collection.

Hepburn Hall after the 1908 fire. Miami University Archives, Frank R. Snyder Collection.

It’s not known when the ghost was first seen, but on the third floor of the building, women began seeing a Native American man. No one knew who he was or why he was there. It was speculated that he had died on the land when the Miami tribes lived in the area. After the Treaty of Greenville, the Miami—or, as they referred to themselves, the Myaamia—were forced to give up land and moved further west little by little. By the 1830s, they had been reduced to five hundred thousand acres in Indiana. In 1840 they agreed to move, within five years, to an equivalently sized area in the Kansas Territory. In late 1846, about 325 remaining Myaamia were forcefully transported on the Wabash-Erie Canal from Peru, Indiana, to Fort Wayne, Indiana, then made their way to the Miami-Erie Canal, where they passed for their final time through Butler County on the way to Cincinnati and to the Ohio River. From Cincinnati, they made their way by steamboat to the Mississippi River, then to the Missouri River and finally, on November 5, 1846, to Kansas—only to ultimately be told that they would need to move again to the Oklahoma Territories.

The Miami tribe left their mark on the area. They left their name on the Great Miami and Little Miami Rivers, and the university that formed on part of their ancestral lands eventually came to bear their name. The fire in Hepburn Hall started on the third floor, the same floor that the Native spirit was seen. Maybe in life he refused to