Fallsville, Ohio - A Christmas Ghost

Careytown Road, New Vienna, Ohio

39.292328,-83.632357

Legend:

 

A family in the now ghost town of Fallsville were visited each Christmas Eve by the ghost of a Native American searching for his lost treasures.

 

 

So what is Christmas without a good ghost story? We did some digging, dusted off our files and found one in the old archives. It seems in the mid 1800s, there was a town a little over an hour and a half away from the Hocking Hills in Highland County called Fallsville.

            The town, itself, is gone now. But a ghostly legend still remains. Dicken’s classic tale, A Christmas Carol, may hang on to most of the glory of ghostly happenings around this merry season. However, Ohio has its own scary tale to tell too – The Fallsville Christmas Eve Ghost.

             Having a haunting during the Christmas season is not the only thing our tale has in common with the Dicken’s story.  A Christmas Carol was written in 1843 and our own ghost story begins right around that time. But even more so, not only was ol’ Scrooge haunted by a ghost or two during the holidays, so was our own cast of characters who were a local family living in Fallsville by the name of Clouser.

             Fallsville was never large. In its heyday, it had a few streets and several  businesses. It did have its own church – Auburn Methodist Church and cemetery where the Clouser’s graves can still be found. Just as it is now, the land during the time Fallsville was founded in 1848 was mostly farmland with houses, barns and fields dotting the gentle slope of hills.   

            But before the time the settlers began cultivating the land, meadows and forest surrounded this part of Ohio. Instead of settlers, Native Shawnee roamed the land. It was during the earlier part of the 1800s, a Native American was murdered on the land near Fallsville. It was rumored he had been followed by thieves, but before he was killed, he buried his treasures somewhere near where the town of Fallsville would later stand.

            Elizabeth and Simon Clouser would later buy land just outside Fallsville with their three children – Lewis, Susanna and Charlotte. Simon was the local miller in the mid-1800s, his job entailing grinding up the local corn and wheat into meal or flour for his customers.

            His stone house and gristmill were located along Clear Creek. It is said he had a white picket fence surrounding his lot and his property consisted of one-hundred and ninety-two acres. But along with their business and beautiful home, they also had a ghost. Each Christmas Eve, a Native American would show up at the end of the path leading to their house and stand just outside the fence. He would gesture and use hand signals as if trying to communicate to the family.

            It must have been scary, indeed, to peer out the windows in the dark of night and see a man standing at the end of the walk and knowing he could see them. Even more frightening must have been the days and weeks before Christmas Eve, knowing the stranger was going to be showing up in the dead of night. No one knew who he was and when approached, he would simply fade away. In later years, Susanna and Charlotte, who lived to be well into their seventies, believed the Native American was the one who had been robbed and murdered. He was trying to tell them where his treasures had been buried. But no one really knows the truth about the ghost.

            Although little remains of Fallsville except a mark on the map and the Methodist Church and cemetery, it is said the ghost of the Native American can still be seen in the wildlife area land now owned by the state. Music has been heard in the tiny woodlots and meadows, the sound of a Native American’s bells making an eerie call out for those who might still find his treasure.      

While visiting Fallsville, I did hear a strange and eerie sound of bells. It came from a small wooded lot. When I tried to follow the ringing, it seemed to be just out of range. And no, I did not find the treasure!               

 Research aids:

Fallsville Legends – Highland Ohio

Rootsweb.com

Findagrave.com

Buckeye Legends: folktales and lore from Ohio By Michael Jay Katz