As the death toll increased at the Athens, the dead were buried in one of three Asylum cemeteries where their simple, white gravestones were marked only with their patient number unless their family paid for a proper stone. Few families, of course, actually did so, and when the final body was laid to rest at Athens in 1972 there were well over 2,000 corpses interred upon the hospital grounds beneath the numbered headstones. In the main graveyard at the Asylum there remains to this day a strange circle of these tombstones, an anomaly among the perfect rows of grave markers throughout the rest of the cemetery. It is claimed that satanic groups and witches’ covens use this circle for their magical rites, and that ghostly figures are often seen in its vicinity. The official word from Ohio University (who now own most of the land and buildings of the former Asylum) is that the circle was simply created by pranksters some years back. Still, it’s in a graveyard and it is considered extremely haunted!

The main building of the insane asylum is naturally considered to be quite haunted as well; it seems to be the inescapable fate of a place where so much human suffering occurred over the course of a century. The most famous tale of haunting at the old asylum involves a patient by the name of Margaret Schilling.

Just before the asylum shut down temporarily in 1978 (It was shut down for good in 1993 thanks to Reagan-era, scumbag Republican budget cuts), Margaret Schilling went missing from the hospital campus. As she was extremely disturbed and unable to fend for herself in the outside world (by some accounts she was a deaf-mute as well), hospital officials employed the local paper to beseech the citizens of Athens, Ohio for their aid in locating her. The search for her went far and wide across Athens County, but in the end it would prove to be of no avail. The thing was, Margaret had never actually left the asylum. Instead, she had hid herself from the hospital staff (some say as part of a child-like game) in the attic of the main building, and the Athens was then closed up and left uninhabited for weeks. A maintenance man found Margaret’s body five weeks later in an advanced state of decay. She had succumbed either to starvation or to exposure in the now unheated building. Her decaying corpse left a stain on the floor where she was found, and such details as the ruffles of her dress and the style of her hair could be easily made out within the mark. This, in and of itself, is not an unheard of phenomenon in forensic investigation; the body’s festering fluids leaving the corpse’s imprint upon a surface much like paint to canvas. What is eerie, however, is that no matter how much the stain was scrubbed at and washed, it still remained. It is, in fact, still there to this very day, and visitors to the old asylum (part of which is now a museum operated by the University of Ohio) can see it for themselves. It is also said the Schilling’s ghost, as well as those of many other former inmates, still roam the hallways of their final earthly abode, restless (and likely still insane) in death.

But if the old asylum and its cemeteries aren’t scary enough for you, there’s even more ghostly happenstance to be found in Athens County. Across the Hocking River from The Ridges is a frightening enigma known as the Athens County Cemetery Pentagram.

The Athens County Pentagram consists of five old cemeteries in the rolling hills of Athens County that create a perfectly symmetrical pentagram when viewed on a map, but whether this formation was intentional or is simply coincidental remains a mystery. What is known, however, is that each and every one of these cemeteries is considered to be extremely haunted. Among the cemeteries that make up the pentagram are the notorious Hannings Cemetery, the Simms Cemetery, and the West State Cemetery.

The British Society for Psychical Research has rated Hannings Cemetery as the thirteenth most haunted place on earth. It is home to the apparition of a hooded old man brandishing a sickle. The ghost is seen quite frequently and has been known to chase people from the cemetery grounds with his sickle. I know I’d fucking run!

The Simms Cemetery was named for Judge John Simms, a local judge during the 1800’s known for his fondness for hanging convicted criminals. The old hanging tree, complete with rope scars, can still be found right outside of the graveyard. It is said that Simms Cemetery is haunted by the ghosts of those Simms put to death, and by some accounts by the old judge himself.

The larger West State Cemetery contains a statue of an angel commemorating the large numbers of fallen soldiers buried there. Many people have reported watching the statue flap its stone wings and cry real tears.

Smack dab in the middle of the Cemetery Pentagram sits Wilson Hall, a building near the middle of the Ohio University Campus first opened in 1964. It, too, has a history of haunting. Room 428 was permanently bricked up, although the window still remains, after a student killed herself. The student was said to have been extremely disturbed and involved in the occult. Since her death, strange noises, flying objects, toilets flushing by themselves, and the sightings of apparitions have plagued Wilson Hall. In the interests of accuracy I should report that by some accounts the Wilson Hall in the center of the pentagram is not, ironically, the haunted Wilson Hall. Apparently there are two buildings on the Ohio campus that share that moniker, and strangely enough it is the one on the campus’s West Green that some say has all the ghost problems. This, of course, makes for a less tidy ghost yarn, but it makes Wilson Hall no less haunted, wherever it may be!

Spiritualists claim that the hills and valleys, the lay of the land as it were, in Athens County makes it conducive to psychic and ghostly energies. Considering the sheer numbers of hauntings in the area, they may well be onto something. Athens, Ohio is considered by many to be the quintessential college town; the university is highly accredited, despite being a bit of a party school. But one thing’s for sure, if you’re into ghosts and ghouls, this might just be the school for you. I bet they have one hell of a Halloween!