On the second leg of my book tour, my wife and I traveled to Lake Hope in southern Ohio, where the story is set.
I wanted to photograph all of the sites listed in the book so that I could post the actual locations for the readers. The main attraction is, of course, the Moonville Tunnel. In the book, Sam and Joshua are attacked by Jackie Hudak near the tunnel. The Moonville Tunnel is where the legend of the Moonville Ghost began.
People say they can see the ghost at night, waving his lantern in a desperate attempt to warn off a train. In some stories, the Moonville Ghost is a woman called the Lavender Lady, who wears Victorian-era clothing and follows anyone brave enough to travel the old rail line at night.
The actual origin of the legend is difficult to pin down as many people have died in and around the Moonville Tunnel during the days of the railroad. There are four contenders.
An engineer and fifty passengers were killed when two trains using the same track collided on July 24, 1856. The conductor of the other train committed suicide later by arsenic poisoning.
On March 31, 1856, a railroad brakeman, referred to as a “brakesman” in the news story, was killed when he walked off of one of the cars, and his leg was badly mangled. He lived for a short time, but the doctors were unable to save him. The newspaper reported that alcohol consumption was a major factor in his death.
A railroad agent named Joshua Sands was killed on June 30, 1856, when a car silently rolled toward him as he inspected cargo.
Finally, there is the story of a bully who was “bushwacked” by several men after starting a brawl at the local watering hole. The coroner suspected that they beat the man to death and left him on the track to conceal evidence, but in any case, he was run over by a train. I could find no corroboration for the final story in the local newspaper, the McArthur Democrat. For the rest, I have attached the corresponding newspaper stories.
In When the Lantern Swings, the investigators don’t know which story is true. I use this approach because, in reality, no one knows which story sparked the legend. Think of it like Alfred Hitchcock’s “McGuffin.” In the movie “Notorious,” Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman must retrieve the mysterious ore in the wine cellar. We never learn what is in the bottle, only that it is vital that the characters take possession of it.
At Lake Hope, I was lucky to meet Lori Calderon, who was the assistant director of the park. She happened to have grown up in a farmhouse overlooking the Moonville Rail Trail, near the spot where Meghan Haynes is killed in the story. She said she and her brother used to watch the trains go by and swear they could see the swinging lantern.
McArthur Democrat Story July 24, 1856
McArthur Democrat Story, March 31, 1856
McArthur Democrat story, June 30, 1856
The Moonville Tunnel as it looked on July 27, 2024
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