A few days later I was visiting some friends. The thought of that stretch of wooded road was still on my mind. I described the road to my friends, and one of them replied, "That’s the Coffin! It is a haunted stretch of road!" She didn’t seem to know why it was haunted, just that it was. Every since then, I have made a nighttime drive through the Coffin a regular event, usually on the way to or from Martha’s Grave. The area is just such a spooky place to be. On two different occasions my the friends who were with me or myself have spotted a shadowy figure moving in the woods, off the road.
I have recently learned that the area is actually known as The Coffins, and I have learned the story of why it is haunted. It seems that in the late 1800’s, to avoid the expense of burying their dead patents, some asylums in the area were allowed to bury them in this wooded area. The dead would be put in cheap pine coffins and buried here. The person with the job of digging the graves would want to get the job done as easily as possible, and would usually put the coffin just under the surface of the ground. White Creek flows through these woods, and the whole area is rather low, so most every spring, the woods will flood. These floods would wash the coffins out of their shallow graves, and it is reported that after the waters would recede, there would be coffins scattered through the area.
It is easy to imagine why the souls of these dead, who may have been harshly treated in the asylums, and then have their final resting places disturbed by the flood waters, would be haunting this area to this day.
The End
The current owners of this land have put together a haunted house and haunted graveyard in this area for the month of October 2004! Visit their website at www.thecoffins.com for more information.
