Dead Man Hollow



Near the right fork of Twin Creek in western Scioto County is an isolated pocket of woods known as Dead Man Hollow. It gets its superbly creepy name from a tiny gravestone with a barely legible inscription which reads: "H. T. Aug. 13, 1824. A. D. Dead M." The "Dead" part is a little odd, but otherwise the story of the person laid to rest here is pretty ordinary.

The name the "H. T." refers to is lost to history, but it is believed that he was a travelling salesman in the days when there were more Indians than white men in Scioto County. The way he died is not known for sure, but it's rumored that he was killed and robbed while making his way through the wilderness on a footpath. He was buried west of Friendship, near the Adams County line.

The flood of 1832 washed part of the grave away, and jewelry was found in the vicinity, which would seem to contradict the robbery story. But in the early part of the 20th Century the tombstone was still there. It might still be today, although I can't say exactly where it's located.

Legends have persisted for more than 150 years that Dead Man's Hollow is haunted. What follows are a couple of personal encounters with the unknown at the Hollow.

My friends and I were in the area one evening, on one of our crazy adventures into the supernatural, when I told them that we were close to the area of Dead Man Hollow. We decided that it would be cool to investigate the area, and see if anything was there.

We parked the car, and walked into the area that I thought was Dead Man Hollow. A little way into the woods, we all heard a strange sound like whistling. It was clear as a bell. We looked at each other, seeing if one of us was being a jackass. While looking at each other, we heard the whistling again. We could see that it wasn't any of us. So we decided that we should leave, in case it was someone else that maybe owned the hollow or something. We didn't want to be arrested. But on the way out of the hollow, we could hear footsteps in the leaves and grass behind us. So we picked up the pace. We were almost to the car when we heard laughing coming from inside the hollow. We didn't know if it was someone playing a trick on us, trying to scare the shit out of some high school kids, but we didn't hang around to find out.

And...

When I was 12 years old me and my dad had a motor newspaper route that took us up Route 125 and into Shawnee Forest. Part of out route was to deliver to the very last house on Lower Twin Creek. We also had a few papers to deliver on Mackletree Road which is next to twin creek. We decided to go a different route that night than we had ever gone before which took us from Lower Twin Creek to Upper Twin Creek. It was about 2 am when we passed a little clearing on top of a small hill. There were a few gravestones on the hill and me and my dad both looked over at the cemetery. On top of one of the gravestones was a ghost, a bright white mist floating in air. I think the ghost I saw was the same ghost as in the Dead Man Hollow story.

Incidentally, there's another Dead Man's Hollow in Ohio--this one in Crawford County. Read about it here.

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