Ohio, 1871: the abandoned stone house in Delaware County that every tenant fled.

What the paper reported

A handsome stone house in a grove in Concord township, Delaware County, stood empty, “abandoned to the owls and bats,” and picnic parties went out to see it. Local legend told of screams in the night and a woman who vanished. Every family that moved in left for the same reason: the place was haunted.

Exhibit A · Transcription

The Haunted House of Delaware—A Mystery.

Many of our readers are aware that the thing the past season in Delaware, was a Picnic to the Haunted House, situated in Concord township, about two miles from the Ohio Sulphur Springs.—There is a mystery about the place which renders it peculiarly attractive to the youthful imagination, and its story may be pleasing to some of the young men and ladies who have picnicked in that vicinity; while a description of the weired place will not be unentertaiding to the stranger. We therefore give the following, which is from an old letter to the Cincinnati Commercial, written from the Ohio White Sulphur Springs, when they were frequented as a summer resort:

‘I visited the haunted house, of which so much has been said. It is located in a fine grove about two miles from the Springs. The house is stone, and has been at one time a very handsome structure, but has long since been abandoned to the owls and bats. The walls of …

Transcribed from the page image, spelling as printed (“weired,” “unentertaiding”); line-end hyphens joined. The image shows the headline and the article’s opening, ending mid-sentence where the letter goes on to describe the house’s painted walls. Checked word by word against the Library of Congress’s OCR text.

Newspaper

Urbana Union

Published in

Urbana, Ohio

Headline

The Haunted House of Delaware—A Mystery.

Date

March 15, 1871

Page

1

Permalink

www.loc.gov/resource/sn85026309/1871-03-15/ed-1/?sp=1

Source

Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Public domain (published 1871).