History & local legend
The woods on the Battles estate in Girard hold a story about a stream locally called Dead Man's Creek. Estate tenants told researchers N. A. Reiter and L. L. Schillig the legend during a 2002 visit, describing an unexplained death said to have occurred in 1861.
Two men had wandered away from a town picnic when they found a young man lying in the shallow water with his throat cut. Nobody recognized him. His clothing made the discovery stranger: he wore a fresh-looking, well-fitting uniform associated with the War of 1812, nearly fifty years before the picnic.
In the tenants' telling, the creek had once borne the Battles family name. After the discovery, it became Dead Man's Creek. The young soldier was said to continue walking its banks at night, searching for the person who killed him.
Sources
- N. A. Reiter and L. L. Schillig, firsthand field report of estate tenants’ oral account, November 24, 2002, “The Strange Tale of the Haunted Creek”
- Hagen History Center, Girard campus, its two Battles houses, farmland and trails
- Lake Erie Region Conservancy, protected Battles Farm land
- Pennsylvania Route 6 Alliance, Battles Museum location
- OSM footprint and address of the Yellow House
