Lock 4 Canal Park
The Ohio and Eerie Canals were completed in 1832 and established a major transportation route that for a while brought great economic and social growth for the cities that were located along the over 300 miles that the route encompassed. The canal system was built by mostly Irish immigrants and some of them to this day have not left their place of employment. Their job was quite dangerous and very grueling. They wold work for over 12 hours a day, and they were given poor shacks to sleep in with a horrible lack of quality and quantity of food. There were several labor uprisings as a result of this treatment, as well as internal fights among the workers.
The local law enforcement attributed 90 percent of homicides along the canal to drunken fights between the workers. Countless men died from diseases such as malaria and acute diarrhea. When these men died their bodies were buried in mass graves, or sometimes simply shallow unmarked graves along the canal. Along the route of Cleveland to Columbus, there are many tales of ghostly encounters between these workers.
However, Lock 4 is different from all the others, located just south of Canal Fulton. In 1857, the canal manager of Lock 4 learned that the lock was going to be shut down. He was so upset that he was going to lose his job that he went insane, killing workers of the lock and then finally killing himself by pouring acid all over his body. His ghost has been reported there, and his old office carries an ominous and evil presence.
(Source: Belanger, Jeff. Encyclopedia of Haunted Places. 2005.)
