Haunted Ohio V: 200 Years of Ghosts

by Woodyard

In honor of Ohio's BOO-centennial year, Chris Woodyard, author of the popular Haunted Ohio series, brings you over 80 all-new tales from haunt-spots around the state from Adena to Zoar. You'll meet the ghosts of the Indian martyrs of Gnadenhutten, a spectral soldier from the siege of Ft. Meigs, the phantom Phoebe, keeping an eye on the canal boats at Roscoe Village, the African American ghosts of Prospect Place, a stop on the Underground Railroad, and many other tales that reflect the history as well as the ghostly lore of the Buckeye State. You'll also meet a real-life Hatchet Man, possibly Ohio s first serial killer, the sad ghost of a wife slaughtered by her husband at what is now a Victorian tea room, and the spirit of a mad murderess in a remote farmhouse. Stories from the following Ashtabula, Athens, Belmont, Clark, Clermont, Clinton, Coshocton, Crawford, Cuyahoga, Darke, Erie, Fairfield, Franklin, Fulton, Greene, Guernsey, Hamilton, Hardin, Henry, Highland, Jefferosn, Lake, Lawrence, Logan, Lorain, Lucas, Madison, Marion, Montgomery, Morgan, Muskingum, Paulding, Pickaway, Pike, Portage, Putnam, Richland, Ross, Shelby, Stark, Summit, Tuscarawas, Union, Van Wert, Warren, Wood

Genres: Nonfiction, Ghosts, Horror

232 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[Rebeka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weakest entry in the series. The author says in the intro that she never planned to write a fifth book, and it shows. A couple of the chapters are incredibly tedious. However, there are also some really excellent stories, and I'm now actively planning a road trip to one of the towns that the author visits because it sounded so lovely that I looked it up. Which is a pretty cool thing for a book to make me do. But the book as a whole just isn't as interesting as the rest of the series and I ended up rushing through it just to be done.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, just missed being a great book as some of the chapters just felt like they tugged on and on. But overall, a well organized book full of interesting personal stories that allegedly happened to either the author, her daughter, or some of the people she meets on her road trip touring Ohio looking for allegedly haunted locations.

[April Helms · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haunted Ohio V, by Chris Woodyard. I love local ghost stories, especially ones related to Ohio. I've read the other Haunted Ohio books, and this one was just as enjoyable. The short stories of ghostly encounters, some the author's own experiences, some taken from interviews of experiences by others, read well and range from faintly amusing to spine-tingling. The stories are grouped by category: ghosts reported in businesses, theater ghosts, haunted restaurants and bars, ghosts connected with the Underground railroad and more. The stories vary; one of the stranger ones is about the ghost of an opossum. I loved the stories on the theater ghosts, the ghost stories connected to Zoar (although I had heard many of them before) and the stories connected with James Garfield's house. A couple odd things stood out. One was the Massillon Black Plague cemetery, where hundred if not thousands of cholera victims were buried in mass graves during the cholera epidemics. A subdivision was built on the area, and residents I guess frequently find tombstones and bones when they dig in their yards. Needless to say, there are also several stories of the supernatural kind. I'm curious as to why it was called the Black Plague cemetery, because I've never seen any references to cholera being called the Black Plague or Black Death (the closest was a reference to cholera being called the blue death). It's especially odd since the Black Plague is generally the name given the devastating bubonic plague that killed tens (some say hundreds) of millions of people in the 1300s. One nit I have (it's minor) is that the author makes a reference to a comment she overheard about embalming techniques not being available during the Victorian era, after which she cracks a joke (which I found amusing). But it might have been nice to add a sentence or two to refute the volunteer's incorrect statement. Embalming has existed since ancient Egyptian times (albeit not usually very effective; the hot, dry weather in Egypt and the ice cold in other areas where mummies have been found are largely responsible). But the techniques and chemicals leading to modern-day embalming techniques did get their start during the Victorian era, especially during the Civil war, when embalming techniques allowed for the transport of the deceased soldiers across hundreds of miles to the grieving families. But otherwise, I enjoyed this collection of stories, and am looking forward to the newest book.

[Amy the book-bat · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of the same... this time some of the stories were longer.