Haunted History Ghost Walk Tour of Canal Fulton by Sherri Brake
https://www.HauntedHistory.net
Our eastern-most member, Christine B, sends us this article from her adventures from Canal Fulton near the Ohio area where she currently resides. On with the article! Click HERE to view the original article in PDF format with all photos associated with it.
Note as of 2022 – Christine B. Morris passed away.
On October 16, 2009 a few friends and I took part in a Historical Ghost Walk Tour in the Akron suburb of Canal Fulton. The old Erie Canal runs through the center of town, so there is lots of history in the area.
We arrived about an hour before the tour was scheduled to begin, so we decided to walk down North Canal Street. We found a delightful teddy bear shop open (Keillor’s), so we entered it to take a look around.
There were hundreds of adorable stuffed bears in the shop, but as soon as I walked into the store I felt a spirit presence. I walked up to the shop keeper and asked if the building was haunted. The owner, Linda Keillor, was very gracious and didn’t seem at all put off by my question. “As a matter of fact,” she told us, “There is a ghost named Agatha in the building, and she hangs out in the basement.”
The Ohio and Erie Canal was completed in 1832. The canal’s route ran along the path of the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas River valley, formerly the site of the most important north- south Indian trail in Eastern Ohio. The canal ran from Cleveland on Lake Erie to Portsmouth on the Ohio River.
The Erie Canal was the first important commercial avenue in the state. In Canal Fulton in the 1800s there were saloons on every corner of Market and Canal streets.
There are many areas along the canal that have been preserved as parks
Well, that’s all I the incentive I needed to ask if we could investigate the reported spirit. Linda was kind enough to take us to her back room, opened up the floor door to the basement, and took us down there. Darlene, LeeAnne and I ventured down the rickety staircase and began shooting photographs. (We had left our other equipment in the car). I caught a few orbs in the basement and in a couple of the first floor areas of the building.
This photo was taken in the back room on the first floor of Keillor’s. I enhanced the close up so the orb could be better seen. Darlene, LeeAnne and I all felt a presence in this area. This is the edge of the door in the floor that leads to the basement. The photo at right is one I took in the basement. This orb seemed to be moving very quickly back and forth.
The photograph at left was taken in the front sales area of the store.
It did drizzle on and off during our tour, and there were many orbs captured outside, but because of all the moisture in the air, it is inconclusive if the orbs were spirit energy or merely rain. I do have to say,
however, that the orbs that appeared in the photograph I took outside Keiller’s near the town’s clock did not look as though they were the typical rain drops.
These could be drops of moisture as it was lightly drizzling on an off all night, but they don’t look like moisture droplets to me, especially since they all seem to have nucleus centers and they are not perfectly round. One cannot be sure, however.
This was the most interesting photograph I took during the tour. I cannot explain the mysterious mist that seemed to be moving quickly all over the area. It was not drizzling at this point and there was no fog. The photograph I took of this same building within seconds of this one did NOT show this mist. Haunted Heartland Tours with Sherri Brake did a great job with the tour. If you get the opportunity to attend one in the future, I highly recommend it.
The area has a great deal of paranormal activity due to the fact that there were over 300 boats a week arriving in the area via the canal. There were saloons on every corner of Market and Canal streets. Many murders went unsolved due to the underground tunnels that were used to dispose of the dead bodies. Sherri has written a book about the area, “Haunted Stark County (OH): A Ghoulish History,” which is available on Amazon.com.