The Weaver Caves: Legends of Devil's Pit

N.A. Reiter and L.L. Schillig

29 September, 2002

Tales are Told...:

Some tales of ghostly activity are specific enough in their genesis that an equally specific course of investigation is implied. Since 1996, LS and I have wandered the state of Ohio and nearby areas - generally at the request of homeowners, curators, and historians - seeking out evidence of the paranormal. In some cases involving events and locations beyond just another "haunted house", we had the benefit of well-known anecdotes and testimony. A good example of this was the rotating Merchant Ball, of the Marion, Ohio Cemetery.

However, some cases are born of a vague rumor and amplified by obsession! Such was the madness with the curious tale of Weaver Cave. In September of 2002, LS and I followed up on a long and convoluted trail of tales and contacts, and made an excursion - we believe original - to investigate the story of the deep sandstone grotto with a blood curdling reputation.

We first go back in time. In 2000, I had first encountered a very short and ill defined "snippet" of information on a reasonably reputable Ohio folklore site concerning a place called Weaver Cave, near the Appalachian Ohio (Perry County) town of Corning. The gist of the story was that a particular cave in the hills near Corning was said to be haunted by the ghosts of a group of African American miners, or perhaps escaped slaves, who were cornered and killed there. In the still of night, screams and moans were said to emanate from the cave.

As with many on-line accounts, the true origins of the Weaver Cave story were an almost perfect blind alley.

Nevertheless, seeds of obsession can germinate swiftly. A number of phone calls and e-mails went out to local libraries and historical societies, however none returned any hints or clues whatsoever. It truly seemed as though the legend of Weaver Cave was unknown, even in the immediate region. Perhaps it never had been anything more than a mis-match of rumors...maybe Weaver Cave was not even a real place, or if it was, it wasn't even in Ohio. After a few weeks, I gave up and put the matter away in the back of my mind.

In May of 2002, I had been reading an article in Ohio magazine on the old coal country of southeast Ohio known as the Little Cities of Black Diamonds region. Perry County, home to Corning and the legendary Weaver Cave was featured, with some telephone contacts for the historical society specifically devoted to the region, the LCBD Council.

"What the hell", I thought, "maybe there would be a trail here..."

Contact was made with two members of the LCBD, Cheryll Blosser and Jobie Siemer, both residents of the Corning area. Both turned out to be pay-dirt of the most wonderful sort!

Jobie Siemer, a bright and energetic Ohio University student, informed me that his family property in the hills above Corning lay adjacent to the property of the Weaver family, and that the last local scion of the Weavers, an older gentleman named Luther still lived on the land there. Luther was well known in the area as a colorful wellspring of tales and history, and...well...colorful is where we shall stay. But more importantly, Jobie declared that he had indeed seen several caves in the 140 acre woodland, and that these HAD indeed been the focus of neighborhood tales and suspicion!

Cheryll Blosser took on the task of talking to Luther (one has to track him down in his rambles across the county) and soon received Mr. Weaver's blessing for us to visit. Luther also recounted what he knew of the caves on his family's property...although the tale of the murdered African American miners was frankly a new one to him. He also had hunted coon and other varmints on many an evening near the caves, and had never heard any supernatural utterances! However, Luther did confess that the lands had been in his family since before 1850, so there could well have been happenings that eluded the historical lore passing down from father to son.

By August, all involved were in agreement, and we established a day to visit and meet, and finally check out the storied cave ourselves!

Into a Darkling Land

The summer of 2002 was hard on our homeland of Ohio. It was hardest and most heartbreaking in its parched brutality on the rugged and whimsical hills of the southeast. As we drove into Perry County on the 14th of September, it became obvious that the drought and heat had left the late summer landscape withered and wanting. The hickory and oak on the hillsides had given up on any hope of colors, and in desperation had turned their brown coats on early, skipping the usual hues.

The Little Cities earned their name due to the incredible rapidity of coal boom growth in the region, from the 1870s to the very early 1900s. The region includes sections of Perry, Fairfield, Athens, and Hocking Counties. Like gold rush towns in the far west, the Little Cities of Black Diamonds were sprawling, rowdy, dirty, and for some, immeasurably profitable. Until the coal seams were tapped, and better profits were to be had elsewhere, that is. From that point in time onward, the towns began a long slow death...never quite achieving the poetic honor of ghost towns; rather just becoming more sparsely populated and forlorn with the years. A most wonderful photo of Corning in its Golden Age was found recently on the LCBD web-site, and is included here.

Main Street, Corning Ohio, 1880s (Photo courtesy of LCBD Council)

The region is somewhat surprising geographically, with hills and dales deeper and lovelier than even in nearby West Virginia. A range, a land, a place apart. The signs of humanity are pure Appalachian, though. King Coal ruled here, and the ghost of coal forms the identity carried on by great grandsons and granddaughters of the old miners. American Gothic, Hillbilly-style, with tumbledown sheds, double-wides, and black gravel...

We met up with Jobie Siemer at the lone gas station / supermarket / social center in Corning, "John's Place". With Jobie was Cheryll Blosser's daughter Kelly, a soon to be freshman at Ohio University in Athens. Cheryll had been detained because of a funeral that afternoon. Sharing greetings and laughs, we felt immediately at home. In the meantime, LS and I noticed a nearby pickup truck, the bed loaded down with a virtual mountain of flotsam, and manned by several hunting dogs riding shotgun. Luther Weaver had arrived...

Luther cuts a memorable figure. He is a local landmark. Gray haired and rough hewn, with frighteningly steel blue eyes. A lifelong railroad man. We shook hands and did introductions about midway through a modular discussion started with Jobie earlier in the day regarding hooligans, trespassers, and goddamned government types. Conversationally, Luther is a grand ironclad argosy, carrying barnacles and tales of ancient battles proudly but requiring a vast distance and much time to turn about on a new course of discussion. The talk eventually turned to the matter of the caves, and proceeded with a number of side references emphasizing the dim view of government, banks, and big business. As Luther broke into a recounting of his knowledge about the caves that he was surprised had come to be known outside of the neighborhood LS stepped aside so as not to receive any premature informational contamination in the event of some strong intuitive impressions that might be found.

Tales of the Weavers

Luther believed that two particular stories might have accounted for the dark legend of the caves. Neither of these, he figured, was known outside of the family and immediate neighbors, so it was anyone's guess as to the true genesis of the murder legend. Neverhteless, while the entire Hocking Hills / Little Cities region is literally perforated with small caves, old mines, and sandstone grottoes, Luther felt confident that the particular cave in question was the one he had always referred to as "Devil's Pit". This name had been passed down through the family, and Luther confessed he did not know its origin...

Before relating the tales, an interesting and important note must be made. While the Weaver family had acquired their lands before 1850, only three generations of Weaver males spanned that vast time period! The secret here was that Luther, now past 70, was born to a 36 year-old mother when his own father was in turn over 70, making one surely muse on Old Testament lineage!

The first tale related to events occurring during the Civil War.

On July 13th, 1863, Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and over 2400 cavalry crossed into southern Ohio from Indiana, and cut a swath of relatively benign terror across the lower part of the state. On the 18th of the month, Morgan and his mounted forces attempted to re-cross the Ohio at Bluffington Island, but were soundly routed by Union cavalry. Additional forces hounded Morgan's rear, under the command of Gen. Henry Judah. Morgan suffered considerable losses, and was forced northeastward further into Ohio. On July 26th, Morgan and 300 of his men surrendered at Salineville, Ohio, thus ending the only official Civil War belligerence on Ohio soil.

Luther Weaver's father was a toddler at the time, however old enough to remember the events that he passed down to Luther in his later years. Luther's grandfather, hearing that Morgan's troops were cutting across Perry County, moved the entire Weaver clan, most of their assets and livestock into the large sandstone cave hidden on one of the steep hillsides on the forested portion of the property. For several days, the family waited in fear until an all-clear was given in the community.

The second tale related concerned the preferred route of a segment of the Underground Railroad. Luther indicated that in the pre-Civil War years, the road to freedom for southern slaves tended to follow a hop-scotch of friendly properties through Ohio. The Weaver property had apparently been such a haven. Luther had been told that the family land and home, now long since destroyed by fire and time, had been a stop on the Underground Railroad. However, this may have extended back into a time before the Weavers owned the property, pre-1850, and Luther conceded that he himself knew little of the property history from that period. He felt it was distinctly possible that at some time before his family ownership, perhaps one or more runaway slaves may have been caught and or killed in the area. Maybe there was a basis for the cave legend after all, although if so it was hard for him to picture how anyone else had known about it, but not his own ancestors.

Luther Weaver
Photo by NR
(click pic to enlarge)

We posed the question to Luther about the possibility that some lynchings or violence had occurred during the brief standoff between African American coal miners and local white mine workers and militia in 1883, known locally as the Corning War. Luther doubted it highly, saying that this would have been known and related by his father, if the property had somehow been involved.

Story telling takes time, and the afternoon was ticking away as we stood there at John's Place, listening to Luther Weaver. With stories duly noted, we urged our wellspring host to lead us onward, to the Devil's Pit itself! LS, myself, Jobie, and Kelly all piled into a single van, and we followed Luther's Gypsy wagon - like truck up into the nearby hills.

The Weaver Caves, and What We Found

The Weaver property lies barely a mile outside of Corning. We parked our vehicles on the gravel road, and allowed Jobie to be our trail blazer and weed whacker through the high briars and brush. We generally followed the course of an ancient driveway, long since gone to thicket, with Luther calling out turns and directions from the rear. A distinct safari atmosphere was present, as we took turns lugging our instrument bag and cameras through the overgrowth. Our party was accompanied by one of Luther's dogs, a perky fat little pup, favoring an animated potato with legs, named Ginger.

A half-hour or so of burrs and sweat later, we arrived at the thickly wooded embankment overlooking a small nameless creek. Without realizing it, we were virtually standing atop one of the caves itself. Jobie found the easiest route down the bank, and soon we had all plopped into the nearly dry streambed, and were confronted with a cave.

Cave is indeed a relative term, especially in southeast Ohio. What we found was more properly a deep rock shelter, a sandstone overhang that would have certainly afforded protection from rain or snow, but nothing to grow a stalactite in. Luther and Jobie were uncertain if this was the cave we sought though, as many years had gone by since either of them had seen the place, and it seemed smaller than they remembered it. However, the mystical little grotto did seem to be of a size great enough that...well...somebody could have been cornered and killed there.

We poked about. LS made a walk through, trying to pin down any lingering intuitive impressions. I took a number of photographs, and ran our Hall Effect magnetometer around the interior. Near the dead center of the overhang roof, a region of significant magnetic distortion (about twice normal ambient geomagnetic) was to be found. However, we noted that this same region of the sandstone roof was also richly stained with iron deposits from dripping water. A short EVP recording with audio tape was made near the back of the cave, however no anomalies were later noted.

LS did not sense much in the way of old patterns. However, we have often times found in the past that human energy residua - the stuff we believe many haunts are made from - tends to be quite difficult for an intuitive to decipher out of doors. Only in extreme cases, such as battlefields or prison yards do the "vibes" appear to linger over decades of time.

We also did some cursory poking around though the sandy cave floor, however no artifacts appeared to be present. Jobie did indicate that he felt a future dig of a more thorough sort would be in order, though.

The Large Cave
Photo by NR
(click pic to enlarge)

If nothing else, the little cave was a green and pleasant place to hide from the parching sun, and continue to listen to Luther "weave" his stories. With ferns and errant mosses to lean back on, we let some further time slip away before thinking about heading out.

However, during our rest, Jobie had wandered up the streambed through the dense thicket, and called out a discovery from about 300 feet away...he had found another cave. Shallower, but much larger! We followed his voice and scrambled up to see his find.

The Small Cave
Photo by NR
(click pic to enlarge)

The second cave was indeed much larger, probably 40 feet high and 60 or 70 feet wide. It was more of an overhanging rock face, probably affording less shelter from the elements than the small cave. But it was grand looking, and equally as magical in atmosphere. We again poked about, but found nothing anomalous either intuitively, photographically, or by instruments.

The time for LS' necessary departure drew closer, and so we all reluctantly forced ourselves into the tiring and dehydrating march back to our vehicles. After a long goodbye and many thank-yous, we parted ways with Luther and his puppies. Jobie and Kelly were dropped off back in town, and LS and I re-hydrated ourselves with about a half a dozen water bottles. (Avalon Water, of course)

Jobie and Kelly
Photo by NR
(click pic to enlarge)

Secrets, Legends, and Gratitude

It was a memorable afternoon, and a unique one in our ghost chasing history. On the most threadbare of leads, we had evolved a quest that took us into history and color and adventure. While no screaming specters presented themselves to us, a tiny bit of local history was made a little bit more clear, and that is a good thing. Even the most localized of history still represents life and love and human activity, good or bad. And even if one memory of a family event from 140 years ago is restored to the light of day, then nothing was in vain.

It would be our conclusion that the blood soaked tales of Weaver Cave are probably pure myth. Can one be confronted with any cave, representing grim archetypes to the mind, and not construct imaginary secrets and mysteries and crimes to fit there?

Yet we may have proved something greater. When a folk tale arises over many years of time, there generally IS a rational or related starting point for it! In this case, we feel that the Weaver Caves being on the Underground Railroad could be foundation enough for ghastly tales of murdered ex-slaves. And, as Luther Weaver pointed out...a lot may have happened before 1850.

And so this may not have been so much a thwarted ghost hunt as it was a little lesson in the origins and content of something that ultimately is far more powerful: myth and folklore, and human memory.

In closing, we would like to thank The Little Cities of Black Diamonds Council, Jobie Siemer (future Mayor of Corning), Cheryll and Kelly Blosser, John Winnenberg, Ginger the animated potato dog, and the good folk of Corning, Ohio. Thanks for your energy, your help, and your interest. However, we reserve the greatest gratitude for Mr. Luther Weaver, keeper of the Secrets of Devil's Pit, storyteller, rail man, Libertarian, and Ohio treasure. May your streams and truck bed be ever full of wonders, and your puppies grow always in number.

Back to top