History & local legend
Stovepipe is the headless figure in several Rices Landing legends, each explaining why a man roams the area with a length of pipe where his head should be. Two of the best-known versions place his death at different locations in Greene County.
At Pumpkin Run, the Train Tunnel Legend describes a boy driving a buggy across the railway on a rainy night. When a train approached, the buggy overturned, and the train’s wheels severed his head. His ghost supposedly continued searching for it, using stovepipe as a temporary replacement.
At Horseshoe Bend farther up the road, the fatal accident involved the driver’s own wagon wheel. One encounter in that tradition concerns two brothers who mocked the ghost by calling that they had found his head. A light then approached through the trees: a man carrying a lantern, with a shining pipe rising above his collar.
Sources
- Danielle Nyland, GreeneScene Magazine, 2019, compares Pumpkin Run and Horseshoe Bend traditions
- Visit Greene County, The Legend of Stovepipe, including two brothers, the lantern and variations
- Mon River Towns, A Day in Rices Landing, locates Pumpkin Run Park entrance across from the old jail on Water Street
- Historical Marker Database, Rice’s Landing Jail marker on Water Street
- Ten Mile Creek Country, 2008, local accounts situating the railway version and comparing the bend version
