The eastern half of Richland County is full of forests, fields, and folklore -- with each of the area's legacies, legends, myths, and ghost stories connected to various bends in the road and other distinctive landmarks throughout the region.  This story below is the second in a series of attempts to write down some of the folklore from this Rich Land of Stories...

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Everyone in the eastern half of Richland County agrees that Geisinger Road can be treacherous terrain to travel, especially the easternmost stretch, where the road bends right as it approaches the bridge over the Brokensword Creek.  It's an absolutely beautiful stretch of countryside, where gold-finches flit and flutter across the road, the grasses grow tall along the way, and large red barns overlook lazy rows of corn on every side with their view broken only by randomly scattered stands of maple and oak.  It's enchanting to drive along this bypass of some of Ohio State Route 96's sharper bends; but it is not a road to be casually traversed.  Numerous accidents resulting in numerous fatalities have taken place in the area over the years.  In fact, even as our family has been visiting the area this summer -- just a little over a month ago -- there was a story in the Shelby Daily Globe reporting the death of another young man, in a pick-up truck, who had lost control of his vehicle out on Geisinger Road, not far from the landmark that area residents have come to call the Crying Bridge.

Everyone agrees that Geisinger Road can be treacherous terrain to travel.  But not everyone agrees on the specifics of the stories surrounding the Crying Bridge -- or that there are any stories to be told at all.

Generally speaking, the stories say that if you visit the Crying Bridge at night -- when the Milky Way stretches out overhead, the lightning bugs flash in the deep dark places where the trees crowd together, and the crickets sing softly on every side -- and if you stand there in complete silence (with not even the idling of an automotive engine), you can hear the sound of a woman crying.  They say that it's the sound of a ghost, crying for her baby who was killed at the creek.  But that's about as far as the stories agree.

Some say that the sounds of the Crying Bridge are a ghostly reminder of an Amish woman, whose family was traveling by horse and buggy at dusk, along Geisinger Road, when an oncoming automobile rounded the bend leading up to the bridge too quickly and crashed into the buggy.  The horse, the husband, and both of the little girls who were riding in the buggy were killed instantly.  The woman of the family, however, was completely unscathed by the accident.  When the driver of the car regained consciousness, he found the Amish woman sitting at the edge of the bridge with the heads of her two little girls in her lap.  The remains of the buggy were scattered around them like matchsticks, but the Amish woman just stroked the blood-soaked hair of her girls and sobbed, as she looked out over the water.  When the authorities arrived at the scene of the accident, the driver of the car blurted the story from start to finish.  But when they started looking for the Amish woman, she was nowhere to be found.  The scene of the accident was blocked off, the victims were identified, and the Amish community eventually laid them to rest, but nothing was ever seen of the Amish woman again.  Only at night, at the Crying Bridge, standing in complete silence, can she be heard again, eternally crying for her babies.

Others say that the sounds of the Crying Bridge go back much further than that, though.  These people talk of the very earliest days of Ohio's settlement, when the white people first pushed into Indian country.  One day, when some of the whites' horses had been stolen, they set off on a killing rampage -- riding from Indian village to Indian village and slaughtering men, women, children, and animals.  Thus one tribe found refuge in a hollow of the creek and hid out as the whites ransacked their village.  Frustrated by the escape of the "savages," the whites swept across the countryside in search of the escapees, roughly following the path of the creek with their long guns poised for action.  When they approached the bend in the creek where the Indians were actually hiding, one papoose -- just a few months old -- started fussing, threatening to betray their position.  The squaw tried to hush her child, but he could not be placated.  As the whites drew closer, the baby started wailing even louder -- at which point the mother was forced to clutch the baby so close to her that he was suffocated to death.  The squaw's sacrifice saved the tribe for that day, but the loss of her child was so bitter that she sobbed uncontrollably for days after the whites had moved on.  She rooted herself on the spot where her baby had been killed -- roughly the spot where Geisinger Road passes over the Brokensword Creek today -- and eventually, they say, her tears watered and cultivated the growth of a weeping willow tree which hung over the water.  Legend has it that the squaw died shortly after the death of her baby, and that her spirit settled within the willow tree.  And even today, the willow tree hangs over the creek, weeping the Indian woman's tears every night.

Beyond the stories of the Amish woman and the Indian woman, there are still other vague rumors about Indians, or early settlers, or Amish folks, or even teenagers on their way to a football game (the last one being surprisingly similar to the mythology surrounding the Olivesburg Fork).  But in any event, the stories all speak to the dangers of Geisinger Road -- warning any people passing that way to be careful.  It's difficult to know exactly which story should be affixed to the Crying Bridge.  But if you visit the bridge at night, in complete silence, and listen for the sound of a woman crying, maybe you'll be able to decide for yourself.

The eastern half of Richland County is full of forests, fields, and folklore -- with each of the area's legacies, legends, myths, and ghost stories connected to various bends in the road and other distinctive landmarks throughout the region.  This story below is the first in a series of attempts to write down some of the folklore from this Rich Land of Stories... 

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Olivesburg is one of those towns that's so small that it doesn't even warrant a speed bump.  Ohio State Route 96 barrels through the settlement with just a mild reduction to the speed limit -- from 55 miles per hour, to 45 miles per hour -- although most motorists ignore even that.  Being as such, it only takes about five seconds to breeze past the dozen houses that make up Olivesburg.  And all things being equal, it's a pretty forgettable town.

But something happened on a dark spring night, many years ago, which made Olivesburg such that it can never again be forgotten.

It was early May.  The spring had been a rainy one, so the rivers and streams were swift and swollen, but on this particular weekend the weather was bright and clear.  Lilacs bloomed by the roadside, with their sweet purple smells hanging heavy over the land.  The robins and cardinals chirruped cheerfully from the trees.  And the students of Crestview High School were on their way to prom.  The boys wore tuxedoes and musky cologne.  The girls wore long, billowing, satinny dresses along with perfume that made the smell of the lilacs seem dull.  The parents took pictures as the boys offered floral corsages to their dates and the couples posed by the family fireplaces.  And then the high schoolers were off to dinner:  "fancy" places like the Red Lobster in Mansfield and the SkyWay East in Madison Township.  Along the way, they laughed and reveled in their youth and vitality.  And then they drove from their restaurants -- scattered across Richland County and Ashland County -- to convene at the Crestview High School Gynasium for the night of their lives.

The prom went off without any problems bigger than a few kids getting busted for smoking in the bathroom, or vomiting all over the dance floor.  But after the party in the gymnasium started disbanding, one particular car full of high-schoolers left the parking lot, driving east on 96 towards Ashland for some after-prom activities, never to be seen again.  The driver of the car was a senior who had borrowed his family's Ford for the evening, and his date had been one of the nominees for prom queen that evening.  Another couple was in the back-seat.  But as they approached Olivesburg, at the place where State Route 603 intersects with State Route 96 at a 20-degree angle -- the Olivesburg Fork -- something happened that caused the car to spin out of control, into the wooded area on the far side of the intersection, and tumbling down the ravine.  Some say that there had been an Amish boy traveling by horse-and-buggy, returning to his family's farm after courting a girl down the road.  Others say that there was a near-miss with another car westbound on 96, which had drifted slightly left of center.  Still others say that the driver had just tipped back a few too many glasses of punch that had been spiked at the prom.  But in any event, the vehicle crashed into the bottom of the ravine at a high speed, the car crumpled like a paper bag, coming to rest upside-down in the creek that filled the bottom of the ravine.  Nobody actually saw it happen, as far as anyone could tell, but some of the folks in Olivesburg heard the noise and came out to investigate, only to find that all four teenagers were dead at the scene.

It was a tragic end to the school year, and the families mourned their losses for years afterwards.  But when many of the local high-schoolers visited the scene of the accident to lay flowers in memory of their friends, multiple ghost sightings were reported.  Even today, area teens will go to the site at night.  And when passing vehicles cast their headlights into the woods on the Ashland side of the Olivesburg Fork, people swear they can see the silhouettes of four young people -- two women and two men -- walking up the hill towards the road, on their way back from prom.

The eastern half of Richland County is full of forests, fields, and folklore.

Shawnee warriors once hunted the area's rich store of deer and fish, but today it's farm country:  corn and soy, red barns and silver silos.  In the easternmost sections of the county, where Richland bleeds into Ashland, Amish and Mennonite families maintain the farming lifestyle of the original white settlers who first pioneered the land, no electricity, no machinery, no frills or foolishness -- traveling by horse-and-buggy, tying their hay up in old-fashioned sheaves, and hanging their laundry out to dry in the wind.  But mostly, today's inhabitants of Richland County are normal folks with televisions, baseball caps, John Deere tractors, basketball hoops, and Ford pick-up trucks.  Generally speaking, the people in the eastern half of Richland County work hard, vote Republican, and love Ohio State football.

Skirted by colorful sprays of wildflowers, purple, orange, and yellow, Ohio State Route 96 weaves its way from Shelby to Ashland, following the contours of the land.  It's a route that demands one's time and attention -- carefully accelerating and braking, following the curves in the road, watching for white-tailed deer, especially at dawn or dusk.  Red-tailed hawks perch on fence posts and telephone poles, watching and waiting to swoop down for a groundhog, rabbit, squirrel, or mouse.  Around this time of the year, the corn is tassling, and the evenings are humid and moist, like a whispered secret.  Late in the day, an amber light slants across the landscape, forming long, cool shadows, with the soy forming soft, verdant beds in the fields, in which the mist nestles down for the night.  As the sun sets and the moon rises, lightning bugs sparkle from the forests.  Crickets sing on the breeze, but otherwise a hush hangs over the land.

And in these moments, the stories return to me.

There are so many stories from this countryside:  legacies, legends, myths, and ghost stories.  Each one seems to be connected to a particular landmark.  There's the Crying Bridge, on Geisinger Road.  And the Olivesburg Fork, close to the spot where State Route 96 and State Route 603 intersect.  There are stories of the Ku Klux Klan and Satanists, convening in the forests and occasionally venturing out to the settlements to wreak their havoc on unsuspecting citizens.  My wife's family -- Richland County residents for seven generations -- has a story about a Moonlight Interrogation.  And almost none of these stories have been written down, as far as I can tell.  After a little bit of research on the internet at at the local library, it seems like very few of these stories exist beyond the aural accounts of Richland County residents -- and the ones that do exist are very condensed, very short, and honestly not recorded the way that I remember hearing them.  So I want take some of these warm summer evenings to see if I can remember some of these stories, draw them out and give them room to breathe, and then set the stories down in written form.  I don't know if I'll be able to get around to all of them, but I'm going to do the best I can do to harvest some of the fruit of this Rich Land of Stories.