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FULTON COUNTY

Fulton County, named for the inventor of the steamboat, Robert Fulton, was formed in 1835 and organized in 1836.

The Potawatomi Indians inhabited this area in a series of camps above the many lakes and rivers. The land was swampy, making the county one of the last to be settled in the state.

Commissioners appointed by the legislature designated the town of Rochester as the county seat. Alexander Chamberlain, a local mill owner originally from Rochester, New York, had laid out the town in 1835. The town’s name probably was borrowed either from New York or Rochester, England, or possibly from another early mill owner named Rochester.

The county takes pride in its history, which is demonstrated by the many historical markers dotting the landscape. The Potawatomi Indians were removed from the county in the 1830s, to take their infamous “Trail of Death” west, now commemorated each fall with the Trail of Courage rendezvous at the Fulton County Historical Museum.

Some of the many famous citizens of Fulton County, past and present, are Clyde Beatty, wild animal trainer; Floyd J. (Jack) Mattice, who in 1903 became the first sports broadcaster in the nation; the first Tarzan (1918), Elmo Lincoln; and Dr. Otis Bowen, Governor of Indiana (1972–80), Cabinet member under President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Health and Welfare.

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish and Wildlife recognizes Fulton County as having seven good fishing lakes. Lake Manitou, 731 acres, is the largest lake in the county and supports a population of largemouth bass, bluegill, crappie and northern pike. Other fish which can be found in the lakes are yellow perch, hybrid stripe bass and smallmouth bass.

The Manitou Monster

Before the time men walked the earth, Indians believed there was a primeval era when strange and awful creatures existed. Perhaps it was their way of explaining the Age of Dinosaurs. Today they only remain in legends. Or do they?

Lake Manitou (from the Algonquian word ma-ne-to, meaning spirit or supernatural force), a 731-acre lake one mile east of Rochester, hides a secret— the Manitou Monster! According to an Indian legend, the lake was—and may still be—the home of Meshekenabek, a serpentlike water creature, much like that of Scotland’s Loch Ness.

Before the white man came to the area, there was an Indian village near the lake. One day the Indians heard a great disturbance coming from the lake. The water became agitated and churning and waves rushed from the vortex lapping at the shore. With a thunderous heave a giant creature rose from the core of the maelstrom. Meshekenabek, the devil serpent!

Meshekenabek came out of the lake and wrought havoc on the village. One Indian, Messou’s cousin, one of the villages finest young braves, was killed during the quaking event.

Fearfully the Indians watched the great hulk sink back into the depths of the lake. Then they saw Messou pushing his canoe into the churning waters. The whole village begged him to return. He didn’t listen. He was intent on seeking vengeance on the creature that had killed his cousin. The villagers watched as he paddled toward the middle of the lake and disappeared.

The Indians had lived close to the lake and fished its waters for generations, but now they left, moving their villages away from the “dark lake,” never to fish its waters again.

When the first white men came to the shores of Lake Manitou, they built a mill and a settlement. The Indians tried to warn them of the monster and the bad luck in the lake but to no avail. John Lindsay, the first blacksmith in the area, noticed a disturbance on the surface of the lake. He couldn't believe his eyes. It was a monster.

In recounting his tale he described the creature as a snakelike beast, about sixty feet long and dingy in color with large yellow spots. The head was about three feet across the frontal bone and had the shape of a cow's head. No one believed Lindsay. A few who heard the story commented that he must've been looking through a glass—a glass of whiskey.

In 1838 a boatload of men were fishing when they saw the monster and quickly rowed to shore. The description was the same as that of Lindsay’s. This time someone did listen. The Logansport Telegraph reported the sighting. George Winters, the artist, sketched his conception of the monster for the Telegraph article, which was published August 11, 1838.

There was a great deal of talk about forming an expedition and making an attempt to capture the monster. The newspaper article “traveled” to New England’s east coast where “men of the sea” offered their services. Some even came to the area bringing huge nets and whaling harpoons. But the monster refused to surface again. After several days they grew weary of waiting and returned to New England.

No more sightings were reported until 1849 when the Logansport Journal ran a headline: “The Devil Caught at Last.” Could this be true? People traveled miles to just get a glimpse of Meshekenabek. The monster turned out to be a huge buffalo carp weighing several hundred pounds, with the head alone weighing thirty pounds. A few remaining Indians did not believe it was possible, insisting the monster was supernatural, unable to be caught by Indian or white men. The town became skeptical of the monster found.

Then in 1888 Phillip Cook caught a giant spoonbill catfish in the lake. It was so large he enlisted the aid of three others to help him bring it in. Once the fish was landed the men estimated its weight to be 116 pounds. Could this then be the real Lake Manitou Monster? For a time Cook exhibited the huge fish. Then he cut it up and sold it for ten cents a pound, at the time a high price. He had no problem selling the fish—it seems as if nearly everyone wanted to have a piece of the Manitou Monster.

There hasn’t been a sighting in over a hundred years. But longtime residents whose families have lived in the area since the first sightings say that the Manitou Monster is still lurking in the depths of this largest lake in Fulton County. They and their relatives have heard a deep booming roar, especially in the quiet of winter nights.

Others will smile and shake their heads; “It's just the ice shifting on the lake.”

We can all wonder.

Sister Sarah

Silently she enters the room. As the man and his wife sleep she watches. Who are these people? Uninvited they and their children have moved into her home as if they belong there.

True, they haven’t interrupted her nightly routines nor do they get in her way. Still she can’t help wondering if they know this was her house!

The inhabitants of Sister Sarah's house described the apparition as a female with long hair, wearing a light-colored dress. She is more like a shadow than a real woman.

Bob Bradway had been looking for a house to buy. The old two-story farmhouse on Fort Wayne Road, east of County Road 825 East, not too far from Rochester, was just the place the family of seven needed. There was plenty of room for their five little girls to play both inside and outdoors. Nobody mentioned the house was haunted. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway because the Bradways didn’t believe in ghosts.

One day shortly after the family moved in, they were exploring the grounds when they noticed some pine trees in a field behind the house. Almost buried in the thick brush between the trees they discovered an old family cemetery. One of the stones bore the weathered inscription:

Sarah McIntire

Wife of R. McIntire

Died Nov. 4, 1873 at the age of 33

Not too long after that discovery they were first visited by the specter.

Often during the night when the children were in bed and the parents were relaxing downstairs, they’d hear someone walking upstairs. “It wasn’t an old house’s floor creaking.” Bob said, “We heard footsteps.” They accused all of the girls; everyone denied making the noise.

As the days turned into weeks the parents still heard someone walking upstairs long after the children had been put to bed. Late one night they heard a different noise. The door at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor squeaked open. They then heard the familiar footsteps. Bob was certain that this time he would catch one of the girls.

Quietly he made his way up the stairs. He didn’t encounter one of his children in the hallway but instead the ghost! Both stood looking at each other. Then the phantom disappeared like a puff of smoke.

After the parents discussed the sighting and after many nights of hearing someone walking across the upstairs floor they began referring to the ghost as Sister Sarah. They chose this name because of the name on the moldering tombstone nearly hidden in the pine trees.

“Whether she really is Sarah, that’s something only the ghost would know. We named her Sister Sarah because she had become a part of the family,” Bob explained. Sometimes she visited without materializing, appearing as a burst of warm air.

They never had any real problems with Sister Sarah. She didn’t seem to be malicious or angry, just as much a part of the house as the floors she walked during the day and late at night or the squeaky door she felt compelled to open from time to time.

The only time Sarah made her displeasure known was when she overturned a Christmas tree one night. All the family was in bed asleep when they were awakened by the sound. Rushing downstairs they found the tree had been toppled over. Many of the ornaments and bulbs were broken. At first the family blamed the dog, but then they realized the dog was on the enclosed back porch where he usually spent the night. There’s no explanation as to why Sarah would’ve knocked the tree down except perhaps it was in her way. After the broken glass was cleaned up, they righted the tree and moved it out of the phantom’s path.

In 1962 the Bradways decided to adopt a one-and-a-half-year-old boy, Mike. As was the family’s custom Mike’s picture was added to the collection on the old boarded-up fireplace’s mantel. Soon his picture was found lying face down on the floor. After this happened several times, they decided that Sarah didn’t want the picture on display, so they put it in a drawer.

Of course, it could be she was trying to send another message. Since Mike was an adopted child she might have felt he was not a part of her family.

The family no longer lives in the house. Until they moved, they never told anyone about seeing Sister Sarah. “Back then, if you talked about things like that, people thought you were ready for the loony bin. Now I don’t care what they say. If they want to believe, fine. If not, that’s fine too.” Bob further states that he’d be willing to take a lie detector test or swear on a stack of Bibles that what he’s said is the truth. “We lived there and I know what we saw and heard. It’s not imagination or made up. It happened.”

The family who lives there today says nothing unusual has ever happened, nor have they ever heard anything strange. Some people believe that when children are in a place where a ghost might exist, this will stimulate ghostly activity and sightings such as experienced by the Bradways. Perhaps this is why Sister Sarah surfaced for the Bradways.

Some of the stories which have grown around Sister Sarah are bizarre themselves. Because she is called “Sister Sarah,” one story states she was a nun who killed orphans, while another calls her a witch.

The tales about the grave seem older than the Bradways’ sightings. One of them says Sarah was unwed and pregnant in a time when a young woman would be ostracized. Did the baby’s father refuse to marry her, leaving her desolate and frightened? One folklore tradition says so.

The story goes that she remained at her parent’s house, staying in her room, refusing to see anyone. Through her actions people in the town began to talk and speculate, looking on her as a fallen woman—a harlot! Eventually her friends ceased visiting for fear that by association they, too, would be judged. Did she kill herself?

She is obviously buried in a lone grave, far from the sanctuary of the churchyard. Other folktales say she was not an unwed mother, but an unfaithful wife carrying another man’s child. In this scenario she jumped from the window to escape a fire set by her jealous husband. Another version of this story states that she had her baby. When her husband realized that the child did not look like him, he knew she’d been unfaithful. In a rage he killed the baby. Then he set the house on fire. Sarah escaped by jumping out of the upstairs window leaving her husband to die in the inferno.

Today it is said Sarah still haunts the gravesite, walking at night with a candle in her hand. Various methods have been devised to summon forth Sarahs spirit or to prove something eerie can happen at her grave. Call her name and she appears in a puff of smoke. Pour a glass of water over her grave. Leave the empty glass and return in a half-hour and the glass will be filled with blood.

Marilyn French, a reporter for the Akron/Mentone News, wrote an article about Sarah in November 1978. Recently Marilyn recalled going to the old cemetery as a teenager with a group of her friends. Remembering that night, with flashlights and a gang of kids pushing and shoving and screaming, her memory of the experience is somewhat chilling. No, she didn’t see Sarah. However, as an adult she believes she and Sarah “met.”

She revisited the graves in 1978 for photographs to accompany her article. “I took several pictures of the area, house and graves. Something funny happened when the film was developed. All the pictures came out except those of Sarahs tombstone. They were blank. I think I had to go back two or three more times. Each time the pictures were developed they came out blank. Finally I was able to get what I needed.”

As she recounted those excursions, she admitted they had left her shaken. She began remembering how difficult it was to even write the story. “Every time I sat down to the typewriter and began to type, it would turn off all by itself. I’d turn it on again. And, it would turn off. This happened so many times I almost gave up. I thought Sarah didn’t want me to write about her. Finally I was able to complete it. But, I can tell you, I was pretty unnerved by the time it was done.”