Lost Ohio: More Travels Into Haunted Landscapes, Ghost Towns, and Forgotten Lives

by Randy McNutt

  Today, the ridge is scattered with the remains of several small settlements: Liars Corner, Mount Nebo, Truetown, Sugar Creek, Millfield, and East Millfield. Little history remains of these towns, but I imagined all kinds of stories involving the naming of Liars Corner.

  The story of Mount Nebo, the town, began in the early 1850s, when a Millfield farmer, fiddler, and mechanic named Jonathon Koons became interested in spiritualism. The movement had started in Hydesville, New York, near Rochester, when in 1847 sisters Katy Fox, eleven, and Maggie Fox, fifteen, claimed they “communicated” with ghosts, who rapped on walls to leave messages. Newspapers jumped on the story, and soon people everywhere wanted to talk to their dead relatives. The sisters’ fame spread across the nation and the world. Two years later, one million Americans counted themselves as believers in the supernatural. Even many skeptics had to admit that it was great entertainment, although transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson criticized spiritualism as “a rat revolution, the gospel that comes by taps in the wall and humps in the table.” When reporters tagged the Fox sisters “the Rochester Rappers,” they became even more famous. Spiritualism quickly arrived in Ohio, where George Wolcutt and George Rogers of Columbus painted portraits of dead people they hadn’t known. Family members claimed they recognized the deceased relatives in the pictures. Meanwhile, spirit circles—support groups of spiritualists—sprang up in Cleveland, Boston, San Francisco, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

  Back on Mount Nebo, Koons was skeptical at first. But he couldn’t explain the happenings that surrounded a neighbor’s daughter who was heavily into spiritualism. Her father warned her that she would bring shame on the family for practicing such activity, but she persisted. Koons attended one of her séances to learn more. “A rap ensued, which appeared somewhat about the table,” he wrote in a letter to Seraph’s Telegraph in March 1853. “I chose to present my own questions, many of which were asked mentally, which were all correctly answered.”

  When he went home, spirits visited him and apparently helped him quickly develop psychic powers, and he became a writing medium. According to Koons, all of the members of his family, including his eight (or possibly nine) children, also became mediums. Yet he needed even stronger evidence of life after death. This came when his oldest son, Nahum, sixteen, received messages from spirits who instructed him to tell his father to build a table according to their instructions, and “place it in a private room for their own use, that then I should have incontrovertible evidence of the existence of spirits.” So Koons built a room, twelve by sixteen feet with a seven-foot ceiling, and equipped it with the various requested items, including pencils and paper. It could accommodate about twenty-five people, but as many as fifty could squeeze into the room. “Then the spirits commenced writing without any medium agency whatsoever … which fact removed every lingering doubt from my mind, for the room was kept constantly closed against the entrance of my own family or any other person during the time the writing was performed,” Koons told the newspaper’s readers.

  It was not long, however, until the spirits wrote out a bill for other implements and instruments of music, amongst which were found two accordions, bass and tenor drums, tambourine, guitar, banjo, harps, and bells, on which the spirits perform, and toys which are sometimes placed in the hands of the audience. A number of pistols were also requested, which were charged and fired by the spirits themselves in rapid succession. Trumpets are also blown by the spirits, and through which they articulate our language, deliver lectures, and sing and pray. Faints and pencils are also used by them, without any medium agency, with which they draw representations of celestial orbs and scenery.

  By 1853, the Koons family had become well known in national spiritualism circles. Word of spirit gatherings in Mount Nebo spread throughout Ohio and attracted Dr. J. Everett, a Columbus physician who was fascinated with spiritualism. He attended spirit sessions at the Koonses’ farm and became convinced that they were legitimate. J. Everett wrote a book about his experiences that was published by Osgood & Blake of Columbus, titled A Book for Skeptics. Its long subtitle more fully explained: Being Communication from Angels Written with Their Own Hands; Also Oral Communication Spoken Through a Trumpet and Written Down in the Presence of Many Witnesses; Also a Representation and Explanation of the Celestial Spheres, As Given by the Spirits, at J. Koons’ Spirit Room in Dover, Athens County, Ohio.

  The book attracted even more attention, and soon the family started hosting intrigued guests from across the country. Traveling by stagecoach from Columbus, visitors came to the farm to hear and see the spirits. They were not disappointed. Before each séance, Koons blew out the lamps and in the dark played his fiddle. Soon, patches of light flew around the room, and so did instruments—while being played by unseen hands.

  Koons and his wife, Abigail, and their children often allowed the strangers to stay overnight at the farmhouse. Their lodging options were slim; Athens County was a rugged countryside. Koons liked it that way. He chose Mount Nebo because of its Indian mounds and its height; in this high, spiritual place, he believed his followers were closer to God.

  Meanwhile, other mediums in other towns were starting their own shows. Those old spiritualists believed that the dead could talk to the living through tappings, séances, writings, and mediums. As spiritualism became more wildly popular in the mid-1800s, regional and local spiritualism societies popped up across the country. In parlors across the country, Victorian Americans gathered to discuss spirits and attempt to summon them through “home circles.” Family and friends sat at dining room tables and sought to communicate with dead loved ones. From these meetings rose professional mediums, who, for a fee, of course, would contact spirits in the afterlife. In several cities across Ohio, spiritualism newspapers provided the latest news in the field.

  At the direction of so-called ancient spirits, Koons built a new spiritual headquarters with a special séance room (he called it the spirit room) equipped with musical instruments. He invited neighbors to hear ghostly symphonies in the new log room next to the farmhouse. The neighbors noted that on the walls were mounted instruments, bells, and copper plates shaped like birds. Spirits told Koons to place certain instruments on two tables: tambourines, tenor and bass drums, a tin horn, a guitar, an accordion, a trumpet, a triangle, and a bell. Koons had trouble finding the instruments in the backwoods country, but he finally managed to buy and borrow them all. He asked his neighbors to sit down and stay quiet. When he blew out the lights, they saw hands with no arms and strange lights floating around the room. They later told of instruments being played by disembodied hands, tambourines flying around the room, and luminous pieces of paper floating around their heads. In this remote region, other neighbors reported hearing big orchestral sounds at late hours—the musically active spirits, perhaps. Stories still circulate about psychic activities at the Koons farm.

  The family enjoyed company. They conducted spiritual readings for local people as well as people from other towns. Spirits wrote messages on a blackboard or on the backs of visitors’ hands and on their foreheads. One spirit wrote so slowly on a man’s hand that he said, “What’s a matter, can’t you write?” In a moment, the spirit wrote one and a half pages on paper, including complex drawings. Then the spirit quickly folded the paper three times and dropped it into the man’s lap. Another time, it is said, a group of scientists came to the farm to conduct experiments. When a phosphorous hand materialized, the men passed it around for inspection.

  Who were these spirits? Koons called them the ghosts of 165 long-dead people, including a John King, who called himself the first man on earth. The spirits described themselves as “pre-Adamite men,” and they seemed at home with the Koons family. (Even more interesting, the spirit of King continued to appear for years through other mediums. They believed he was the spirit of the Welsh pirate Henry Morgan, who died in 1688.)

  But Koons’s neighbors were less than enthusiastic about the goings-on. They burned his barns, attacke
d his children, set fire to the crops, and threatened the family. Perhaps because of such violence, the family left for Illinois in 1858. (Some accounts say 1855.) For a time, the family conducted spiritualism missionary work on the road, and later they disappeared into history.

  But Jonathon Koons didn’t exactly vanish; his reputation followed him all the way to Illinois. A century and a half later, in fact, he is a cult figure among spiritualists as well as the target of skeptics. Even the famous medium-buster Harry Houdini knew of Koons. Houdini had a theory: Koons was a skillful inventor who managed to develop a crude and early version of a transmitter to project “spirit” voices. “To the best of my knowledge,” the magician wrote in a story in 1922, “the first application of the principles of radio to spiritualistic manifestations was in 1852, when Jonathan Koons … installed a ‘spirit machine’—described as a crude structure of zinc and copper for localizing and collecting the magnetic (sounds). This radio-telephone trick is performed in many ways. Statues of Buddha are popular bits of property employed by mediums; they are made to answer questions as glibly as hollow balls and trumpets.”

  Yet Jonathon Koons’s reputation continues to live. Was he a faker or a believer? On the Internet alone, he is the subject of several stories written in English, German, French, and other languages. But apparently he was not a rube farmer from Athens County. Facts about him are scarce and contradictory, although in 1927 his paternal grandson wrote that Koons was born September 28, 1801, in Germany, where he was well educated in history, astronomy, and philosophy. In the old country he worked as a shipbuilder. After immigrating, he helped build ships in Philadelphia before settling in Athens with his growing family. By most accounts, the couple had ten children from 1837 to 1854. (Only eight are usually noted in public records.) But Koons also made time for lofty pursuits, such as writing articles for newspapers and magazines, and promoting spiritualism.

  Although he didn’t continue practicing as a medium in public, he stayed in the spiritualism faith until his death in 1893 in Northern Township, Franklin County, Illinois, where he had resided for many years. His marker in Middle Fork Cemetery reads: “Jonathon Koons. A pioneer and liberalist passed to Spirit on 26 day of Jan. 1893, age 91Y 3M 29D.”

  Today, when darkness falls on Mount Nebo, people say you can sometimes hear a band of spirit musicians playing their old songs. Is that a fiddle melody coming from the hills?

  After Koons left Athens County, a group of spiritualists tried to build a town on Mount Nebo, claiming that it was receptive to psychic happenings. In 1870, spiritualist Eli Curtis bought 5.15 acres for $250 and dedicated it to spiritual purposes. On this land he planned to build a city named New Jerusalem.

  He worked with other members of the spiritualistic Morning Star Community but paid for the land mostly from his own pocket. According to Curtis, the community’s main partners included William D. Hall and Chauncey Barnes, “having been appointed the Executive Committee of arrangement by a Spirit purporting to be Jesus of Nazareth, assumed, with ‘Mother Hanaman,’ to carry out the work of our community in & by organizing the Morning Star Community.”

  Barnes was the most active participant. On November 2, 1871, the Athens Herald reported: “We last week had a visit from Dr. Chauncey Barnes, who is now engaged in building up the new city of Mt. Nebo. The Doctor informs us that his church edifice is nearly completed, and will probably be ready for dedication by Christmas.”

  An unnamed newspaper reporter called Barnes “the Great High Priest of Spiritualism in this part of the country” and asked him about photographs of local people that also showed background faces—“dim, shadowy, and weird-like, but still perfect and distinct.” (This trick was used sometimes by traveling photographers during the spiritualism craze of the late nineteenth century.)

  “But Doctor,” the reporter wrote, “by what process of reasoning do you account for these shadowy specters on your photographs?”

  “By those unseen spiritual agencies which will in time flood the whole world with light,” he replied.

  “Of course,” the reporter continued, “we had no reply to make to this, not being versed in spiritualistic lore, but at the same time the thought did strike us that instead of ‘enlightening’ the world at the present time, the fantastic tricks of the ‘spirits’ were just now rather obfuscating the understanding of the people. If an invitation were extended to him, Dr. Barnes would lecture in our village and, as he observed, ‘give ocular demonstration to the truth of Spiritualism.’”

  The group hired workers to erect the walls of a sixty-foot-wide tabernacle, called King Solomon Temple, which was octagonal with a door or window on each side and a cupola. A lack of money stopped the community from finishing the interior.

  Five years later, Morning Star disbanded, and Barnes left the country. Curtis and his wife and Hall remained and later were buried nearby. The temple wasn’t torn down until 1893.

  Today, every trace of the spiritualists has disappeared from the hill. It is the home of Mount Nebo Trail, which runs from Athens, along Peach and Sand Ridges in Dover Township and others. Peach Ridge is also the home of five small, old cemeteries, including Hanning Cemetery, also known as Peach Ridge Cemetery. Some people claim the cemeteries are used by local witches for ceremonies, and writer Sandy Speidel mentioned that the cemeteries, when shown on a map, represent a pentagram. “There are numerous stories of strange happenings within the perimeter of the five cemeteries, some of which have been reported by people with no previous belief in such things,” Speidel observed in 1973. “One of the cemeteries contains a natural rock formation in the form of a circle. People who have stood in the middle of the circle have reported extraordinary sensations, such as communing with the dead.”

  Driving up on Peach Ridge, no more than ten miles northwest of Athens, is like going back into pioneer times. The ridge (it looks like a mountain to me) is a wild place where nature rules. Autumn trees flash a spectrum of gold and scarlet leaves, joined by strikingly purple weeds. Even the ragweed looks pretty. In contrast, the gray drabness of poverty covers the Appalachian hillsides. Scattered along the narrow road—blacktopped but covered with loose gravel—are dilapidated, old mobile homes. A number of them sit abandoned not far from attractive homes that appear around the next bend, proving there is no distinction between the poor and the middle class on Mount Nebo.

  Up on the mountain, you can drive yourself mad—and lost—by looking at tiny dirt roads and other minor ones that shoot off like arteries. You’ll see Kerns Road, Sand Ridge Road, Swett Hollow Road, and others that lead over to Scatter Ridge and Tick Ridge. The thought of a Tick Ridge made me squirm.

  With Cheryl at my side, I asked a man who was getting his mail: “How do you get to Liars Corner?” He said, “You’ve already passed the lane that leads over to it, and you missed it. Don’t bother goin’ back there. Ain’t nothin’ left.” When I asked about Mount Nebo, he said, “Ain’t nothin’ there, either, ’cept two trailers owned by old man Rutter.”

  After asking more directions from two road workers, I went back three times until I finally saw the place with two mobile homes. On this land the Morning Star Community practiced its spiritualism. In front, a milk can supported an old-fashioned rural mailbox. In the yard hung three beer cans on a metal chain, with the hand-lettered title “Redneck Wind Chime” beneath it. Leaves floated in through the air like bats fluttering to roosting places. Nobody came to the door. Thankfully.

  In the middle of the remote countryside, this idea struck me: Even up here, you see electric lines and candidate signs for the November election. You just can’t escape politicians and power.

  Winding back down Mill Creek Road and others, we saw homes decorated for Halloween with orange twinkle lights, pumpkins, and inflatable ghosts. A sign said: “Speed Limit … None.” One house had a little greenhouse attached, and a ramshackle barn featured one of those old advertising thermometers, all rusted and bent. Nearby we saw a house with a dog-training grounds and another
with a nursery business and mums in full bloom and a “no hunting” sign posted. At the Brown-Ford Cemetery, we found a gate hung between two brick posts. A bronze plaque read: “This gateway has been erected by members of the Brown-Ford Cemetery Association in memory of their pioneer ancestors resting here. 1970.” Glancing around, I saw a guy in a red flannel shirt staring at us. He looked angry, so I started the car and left fast.

  The last time we stopped on lonely Mill Creek Road, we heard no noise. Total silence. Surely no trumpets and fiddles played a song. Not even a bird or an insect chirped that day. As I started the car, it sputtered for the first time since we bought it. Cheryl turned to me with a frightful look and said deeply, “Spooky.”

  We laughed all the way back to Athens.

  9

  A View from the Tower

  The first time I saw it, my eyes quickly refocused and I blinked hard and thought I’d glimpsed a set for Dracula’s castle—just over a hill in, of all places, Richland County. Then I realized that the building with huge towers and thick walls and a long metal fence was not a castle at all. It was the Ohio State Reformatory, a musty monument to man’s dark side and a de facto Scared Straight program for any child or adult who tours it these days.

  The prison is also Ohio’s largest—and toughest—ghost town. Although circumscribed by barbed wire and steel bars, the prison was a self-contained community that grew its own food and operated its own restaurant, post office, printing business, carpentry shop, cemetery, and other essential daily-life functions. At its peak, the population numbered thirty-two hundred. Unfortunately, its residents didn’t live in this “town” by choice. The population turned over every few years, though some residents never left.

  Today, few visitors can walk through the steel and stone corridors without reacting on some level. Many feel an overwhelming fear; others, only pity. Some wonder if ghosts stalk the old cellblocks. Based on the gothic appearance alone, writers for national cable television shows have dubbed it one of the scariest places on earth.