"Axe Murder Hollow" - by Carrie Rodler

The area known as "Axe Murder Hollow" was actually a farm in the early 1900's but was left unattended for decades, and woods sprung up. As a kid, I used to wander these woods with my father, who would check out the area for places to hunt and trap. At first, I was terrified to be in the area, even during the day, but no axe-wielding apparition ever confronted me, even when I was alone. Oddly enough, even my skeptical father would never take me to the site of the house of the alleged murders.

There is a story that has circulated the internet about a car breaking down on a rainy night on the road that passes through the hollow. That story is completely unsubstantiated. I believe it is just an Erie legend made famous by a local radio station that used to repeat it every Halloween. My parents moved to that town when they got married in 1966, and they never heard of a rainy-night murder like that. Nor have any of the other long-time residents of the area.

Another famous rumor about this place is the lack of wildlife sounds, particularly bird calls. Strange as it may be, I found this to be true the few times I was there. The surrounding woods were always uncannily quiet, even during the day. Perhaps there is a perfectly logical explanation for this, but the tale of silence does seem to have some truth to it.

The common legends:

1. A husband, his wife, and his brother lived together in the same house or on two houses on the same property. She was having an affair with the brother. The man killed his brother and his wife with an axe after discovering the affair.

2. A husband, his wife, and a farm hand lived together or on two houses on the same property. She was having an affair with the farm hand. The man killed them both with an axe. A variation is that the husband was jealous at attentions paid by the wife to the farm hand, even if she was not outright cheating. The stories sometimes include children that may or may not have been slaughtered. The stories also sometimes mention that the husband killed himself.

3. There was a man and his wife living on a farm. She killed him with an axe and then killed her children.

The murder, if it did occur, must have happened in the late 1800's or early 1900's.

What is fact is that there used to be a well-worn path leading up to a house that was built on the edge of a ravine. Personally, I have seen the path (but was forbidden by my father to follow it.) In 1954, my mother was taken to the area when she was 14 with her Girl Scout troop. They did not go up to the house, which was abandoned, but you could see it from the road. The place was known to be frequented by high school and college boys who would take their girlfriends up there to scare them. However, it was dangerous because enough of the earth had eroded that the back door of the house opened out into nothing but a long drop to the creek below. Whether or not there were injuries is unknown, but it was enough of a concern to the township that the house was demolished somewhere around the early 1980's.

Up until recently, the foundation of the house was still there. The place itself was a narrow road, and the trees grew over it in summer, blocking out enough sunlight to make it spooky even on a bright day. Furthermore, there were the "gypsies" to contend with. I'm not sure who they were or where they lived, but if you stopped on the road for any reason, you could expect to have rocks thrown at your car at the very least. Having grown up in the area, I heard stories in school about the older kids who had gotten their headlights smashed out by the "gypsies" wielding baseball bats and crowbars, although you never know if such stories were just for show. One kid riding the school bus with me when I was in middle school claimed to be one of these "gypsies".

The whole area now is under development for a nice subdivision, but oddly enough, that particular parcel where the house stood was the last one to sell.