In total there were roughly two thousand people interred in the Athens State Hospital burialgrounds before 1972, when the burials ended with Female #847 and Male #1117. Since men and women were numbered separately, there are two gravestones for each number through 847.
Apparently Ohio University also buried the cadavers used in its medical classes here.
The Ridges asylum cemetery is also definitely reputed to be haunted. Most of the stories center around the weird circle of graves which takes up one corner of an otherwise military-style tombstone layout. Maybe there was a center stone at one time, but now it's just a barely-distinguishable ring of graves. The legends say that witches use this as a circle of power (or something like that) to hold seances in.
Camp Chase Prison
Until Nov. 1861, Camp Chase, named for Sec. of the Treasury and former Ohio governor Salmon P. Chase, was a training camp for Union volunteers, housing a few political and military prisoners from Kentucky and western Virginia. Built on the western outskirts of Columbus, Ohio, the camp received its first large influx of captured Confederates from western campaigns, including enlisted men, officers, and a few of the latter's black servants. On oath of honor, Confederate officers were permitted to wander through Columbus, register in hotels, and receive gifts of money and food; a few attended sessions of the state senate. The public paid for camp tours, and Chase became a tourist attraction. Complaints over such lax discipline and the camp's state administration provoked investigation, and the situation changed.
Food supplies of poor quality resulted in the commissary officer's dismissal from service. After an influx of captured officers from Island No. 10, officers' privileges were cut, then officers were transferred to the Johnson's Island prison on Lake Erie. The camp's state volunteers and the camp commander were found to have "scant acquaintance" with military practice and were transferred, the camp passing into Federal government control. Under the new administration, rules were tightened, visitors prohibited, and mail censored. Prisoners were allowed limited amounts of money to supplement supplies with purchases from approved vendors and sutlers, the latter further restricted when they were discovered to be smuggling liquor to the inmates.
As the war wore on, conditions became worse. Shoddy barracks, low muddy ground, open latrines, aboveground open cisterns, and a brief smallpox outbreak excited U.S. Sanitary Commission agents who were already demanding reform. Original facilities for 3,500-4,000 men were jammed with close to 7,000. Since parole strictures prohibited service against the Confederacy, many Federals had surrendered believing they would be paroled and sent home.
Some parolees, assigned to guard duty at Federal prison camps, were bitter, and rumors increased of maltreatment of prisoners at Camp Chase and elsewhere.
Before the end of hostilities, Union parolee guards were transferred to service in the Indian Wars, some sewage modifications were made, and prisoners were put to work improving barracks and facilities. Prisoner laborers also built larger, stronger fences for their own confinement, a questionable assignment under international law governing prisoners of war.
Barracks rebuilt for 7,000 soon overflowed, and crowding and health conditions were never resolved. As many s 10,000 prisoners were reputedly confined there by the time of the Confederate surrender.
Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War
2260 Confederate prisoners of war were buried at Camp Chase Cemetery. A melancholy ghost haunts the rows at Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery, 2900 Sullivant Avenue, on Columbus's west side. Her name, according to some, is Louisiana Rainsburgh Briggs, but she's better known as the Lady in Grey. She weeps quietly over the grave of one Benjamin F. Allen, a private in the 50th Tennessee Regiment, Company D. Allen's grave is number 233 out of 2,260 Confederate soldiers laid to rest in this two-acre plot in the capital city of a very Northern state.
The Buxton Inn in Granville, Ohio was built in 1812 by Orrin Granger, founder of Granville. He had originally lived in Granville, Massachusetts. The building was originally used as a post office and stagecoach stop, and it is currently Ohio's oldest operating inn still using its original building. Major Buxton operated it as an inn from 1865-1905, and that is for whom it is named.
Orrin Granger's ghost was the earliest documented sighting. Sometime in the late 1920's, a son of one of the owner's encountered Orrin in the kitchen and caught him eating the last piece of pie. Orrin's ghost has been seen many times since then, especially sitting by the fire. He is almost always described as a gray-haired man wearing knee britches.
Major Buxton's ghost is described as being a shadowy figure. He has been seen all throughout the house, but he seems to be seen mostly in the dining room. He is easily identified by the guests because a big portrait of him hangs in the Inn.
In 1972 Orville and Audrey Orr, who began to restore the building, purchased the inn. This seems to have stirred the spirit of yet another former owner, Ethel "Bonnie" Bounell. She was the innkeeper from 1934 to 1960. The workers were startled one day by a ghostly woman in blue, who then began appearing regularly at 6:00 p.m. After the renovated inn opened in 1974, and right up to today, she has been seen in numerous places. She has been encountered on the upper balcony, in the ballroom, and on the stairway. The best places to see her, though, seem to be room 7 and in room 9, which is the room in which she died. She startled a cook in the late 1970's by occupying the bed in room 7 when he went to go to sleep. In 1991 she appeared in room 9. A nurse was awakened to find a woman sitting on the foot of her bed. The woman asked, "Are you sleeping well?" The nurse replied the only way anyone could, "No, I'm not!"
The woman then vanished. The nurse approached the staff about the incident, and when showed a photo, she identified the woman as Bonnie Bounell.
The inn also has the typical markings of a haunted building: footsteps, doors and windows that open by themselves, the feelings of unseen presences. Guests have also seen disembodied hands warming themselves by the fire.
The Buxton Inn is one of Ohio's most famous haunted hot spots!
Click the banner below to visit our website chronicling the hauntings of our civil war era home.
Prepare cake mixes and bake according to directions (any size pans).