Hidden Marietta Ghost Trek tour showcases city's haunted history

Murder, death, ghosts and spirits-Marietta is a historical town and perhaps a haunted town as well.The Hidden Marietta Ghost Trek is a walking tour of Marietta where Lynne Sturtevant, founder of Hidden Marietta and author of "Haunted Marietta: History and Mystery in Ohio's Oldest City," tells about the history of buildings or locations and explains their haunting pasts.

The Levee House Cafe, which sits on Ohio Street right in front of the Ohio River, has a mysterious past. It was built in the 1820s, back when the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers were still a major mode of transportation, and Ohio Street was booming with business. The Levee House was not always a restaurant. It was once a liquor store, a garage, and the three-story side was the La Belle Hotel.

During the tour, Sturtevant told the story of a local Marietta man who had an affair with a prostitute in the 1890s. The man was married with five children. One night, when he thought his family was sound asleep, he snuck out of his house and went to meet the prostitute at what is now the Levee House. He followed her up to her room and then turned the lights out.

What he didn't know is that his oldest son was not asleep when he left. The son had gone downstairs, grabbed an axe and followed his father. The son had seen which room his father went into, and then the son went up to room, walked in and saw his father with the prostitute. The son took the axe and chopped his father's head off, leaving the prostitute unharmed.

The son was immediately arrested and later put on trial, but the jury acquitted him. They said it was a justifiable homicide and that the son committed it to reclaim his family's honor, as his father's affair had brought them shame.

"This was a big crime of passion," Sturtevant said.

The people who live and have lived in the apartments above the Levee House have reported hearing footsteps in the stairwell. Some have gone out into the hallway to see what it was, only to find nothing. Then, the footsteps would immediately start again. Sturtevant said this is a residual haunting.

"Residual hauntings are not ghosts. They are a paranormal phenomenon," Sturtevant said. "They are called residuals because the emotional energy from these intense incidents that gaverise to them-crimes of passion, terrible accidents, battles, etc-lingers in the environment long after the incident is over. Sometimes many, many years longer."

Another crime of passion and murder occurred in the 1930s inside the Colony Cinema, also called the Colony Theatre, located on Putnam Street.

In the 1920s, the Colony Cinema and the theater across the street had the same owner. There was a tunnel underneath Putnam Street that the owner would use to go back and forth between the two theaters. Then, in the 1930s, an acting troupe came to the Colony Cinema to perform, and they went down to the basement because that is where the dressing rooms were. Two men in the troupe got in a fight over one of the female actresses. The fight drifted into the tunnel, and one man was stabbed and left in the tunnel. Days later, after noticing a terrible smell, his body was found.

Sturtevant said to this day, people believe they have seen the ghost of the owner in both of his theaters.

These stories are just a sampling of the information provided on the Hidden Marietta Ghost Trek. Tours depart from the fountain on the corner of Front and Greene Streets, across from the Lafayette Hotel, every Friday and Saturday night at 8 p.m. The cost is $15 for adults and $10 for children.