Читать книгу Ghosthunting Ohio: On the Road Again - John B. Kachuba - Страница 20

In 1844 a man named Charles Fourier bought property in Clermont County along the Ohio River. Fourier was a member of a religious sect that believed the world was entering a 35,000-year period of peace. In his futuristic vision all of the world’s peoples would be collected into “phalanxes,” communes of a sort. Fourier also believed the oceans would turn into lemonade—no joke. Even with his lemonade theory, Fourier was able to attract more than a dozen families to his own phalanx, which he named Utopia.

For a rent of $25 a year, each family received a wooden house. Fourier’s plans called for the community to eventually have its own farmland, stables, schools, and libraries. Fourier built a community dining hall on the river and a thirty-room brick house on higher ground.

Fourier’s followers were patient but when the oceans did not turn into lemonade as he had predicted, many became disillusioned and left the community. In 1847, Fourier sold the property and buildings to John O. Wattles, a Spiritualist leader. The first thing Wattles did was to move the brick building down to the riverbank, brick by brick. It was rebuilt by December of that year, just in time for the record floods that washed through the Ohio River valley, bringing with them record-breaking high water.

Despite all warnings, many of the Spiritualists gathered in the brick house for a dance on the night of December 12. The party came to a gruesome end, though, when the bricks gave way in the rushing flood waters and many of the people inside were swept away into the dark and freezing waters.

Today, Utopia is little more than two roads that dead-end at the river, a gas station, and a couple houses. But some say the Spiritualists are still there. There are reports of soggy apparitions coming up out of the river or walking along the riverbank.

Also, an underground stone chamber still remains on the banks of the river. It opens to the surface in two places that are fenced in, but that has not stopped people from climbing over and then descending into the chamber. About twenty feet deep, the dirt-floored chamber has a vaulted roof and two fireplaces. No one knows for certain who built the chamber or how it was used. Was it Wattle’s Spiritualist church? A stop on the Underground Railroad? An old storage facility? Whatever it may have been, it makes an excellent hiding place for ghosts.

Two young men were driving along the river one night when they spotted the Utopia sign. Curious about the place, they stopped to investigate. There wasn’t much to see, but as they picked their way along the riverbank in the dark the men saw a white shape in the distance, coming toward them. As it drew closer they saw that it was taking on a more recognizable form, that of an old woman dressed in tattered clothes. One of the men ran back to the car to get his camera, but by the time he got back, the old woman had disappeared. Was she one of Wattle’s drowned followers?

Maybe you can find out for yourself. The next time you’re driving on SR 52 in Clermont County, make sure you stop at Utopia and spend some time with its ghosts.