says nothing unusual has ever happened, nor have they ever heard anything strange. Some people believe that when children are in a place where a ghost might exist, this will stimulate ghostly activity and sightings such as experienced by the Bradways. Perhaps this is why Sister Sarah surfaced for the Bradways.
Some of the stories which have grown around Sister Sarah are bizarre themselves. Because she is called “Sister Sarah,” one story states she was a nun who killed orphans, while another calls her a witch.
The tales about the grave seem older than the Bradways’ sightings. One of them says Sarah was unwed and pregnant in a time when a young woman would be ostracized. Did the baby’s father refuse to marry her, leaving her desolate and frightened? One folklore tradition says so.
The story goes that she remained at her parent’s house, staying in her room, refusing to see anyone. Through her actions people in the town began to talk and speculate, looking on her as a fallen woman—a harlot! Eventually her friends ceased visiting for fear that by association they, too, would be judged. Did she kill herself?
She is obviously buried in a lone grave, far from the sanctuary of the churchyard. Other folktales say she was not an unwed mother, but an unfaithful wife carrying another man’s child. In this scenario she jumped from the window to escape a fire set by her jealous husband. Another version of this story states that she had her baby. When her husband realized that the child did not look like him, he knew she’d been unfaithful. In a rage he killed the baby. Then he set the house on fire. Sarah escaped by jumping out of the upstairs window leaving her husband to die in the inferno.
Today it is said Sarah still haunts the gravesite, walking at night with a candle in her hand. Various methods have been devised to summon forth Sarahs spirit or to prove something eerie can happen at her grave. Call her name and she appears in a puff of smoke. Pour a glass of water over her grave. Leave the empty glass and return in a half-hour and the glass will be filled with blood.
Marilyn French, a reporter for the Akron/Mentone News, wrote an article about Sarah in November 1978. Recently Marilyn recalled going to the old cemetery as a teenager with a group of her friends. Remembering that night, with flashlights and a gang of kids pushing and shoving and screaming, her memory of the experience is somewhat chilling. No, she didn’t see Sarah. However, as an adult she believes she and Sarah “met.”
She revisited the graves in 1978 for photographs to accompany her article. “I took several pictures of the area, house and graves. Something funny happened when the film was developed. All the pictures came out except those of Sarahs tombstone. They were blank. I think I had to go back two or three more times. Each time the pictures were developed they came out blank. Finally I was able to get what I needed.”
As she recounted those excursions, she admitted they had left her shaken. She began remembering how difficult it was to even write the story. “Every time I sat down to the typewriter and began to type, it would turn off all by itself. I’d turn it on again. And, it would turn off. This happened so many times I almost gave up. I thought Sarah didn’t want me to write about her. Finally I was able to complete it. But, I can tell you, I was pretty unnerved by the time it was done.”
HUNTINGTON COUNTY
In 1831 a city was established on the site of a Miami village, Wepecheange, “place of flints.” That same year General John Tipton purchased the land and the following year Huntington County was formed. Tipton had a town platted on his land in 1833 and then offered a portion to the county for use as the county seat.
Both the city and the county were named for Samuel Huntington, a Connecticut delegate to the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
At Roanoke on July 4, 1835, the Wabash and Erie Canal was officially opened from Fort Wayne to the Dickey Lock, approximately fifteen miles west of Fort Wayne. While the canal’s success was short-lived, its path followed the prime right-of-way through the area, and in 1856 the Wabash Railroad laid its tracks along the old canal towpath. Today US 24 runs along that same route.
Beyond Roanoke, just 1. 7 miles east on US 24, can be seen a depression which is one of the last remnants of the Wabash and Erie Canal. Once the longest artificial waterway in North America, the canal extended 464 miles between Toledo, Ohio, and Evansville, Indiana.
Today Huntington County is primarily agricultural.
A member of the Indiana Canal Society was investigating the only visible reminder of the Wabash and Erie Canal just 1.7 miles east of Roanoke on US 24—a depression in the land where the canal lock had been. While intent on mentally picturing how the canal looked back in the mid-1800s, he heard someone call out for help. He spent several minutes looking around and found no one in need of assistance. Deciding teenagers where having fun with him, he returned to Fort Wayne.
At one of the Canal Society’s meetings he told another member about the Roanoke site and then laughingly described to him the prank supposedly played on him by area teenagers. The man, a lifelong resident of the Roanoke area, told him that it had not been a hoax. What he had heard could have been one of the ghosts connected with the farmhouse which once sat along the canal. And therein, of course, lies a tale.
The opening of the Wabash and Erie Canal increased commerce to Roanoke, which is just fifteen miles west of Fort Wayne.
Lorenzo “Van” VanBecker’s farm one mile north of the village of Roanoke bordered the canal and afforded opportunities to increase his wealth. This successful farmer had just moved his family into a new, impressive, two-story white house with green shutters above the canal lock.
Passengers sharing cramped space with cargo, cattle and hogs, traders, land speculators, settlers, and a few unsavory individuals all seeking opportunities in the newly acquired lands could see the house as they approached on the canal and looked at it as a convenient “getting off” place. Van and his wife often offered board and meals to the weary travelers.
Just below the hill where his grand house sat Van built a boatyard to meet the need for more canal boats. This was, after all, the “canal age.” Once a boat was completed and until it was purchased, he would fit it out with a crew and operate the boat between Roanoke and Fort Wayne.
Though the canals brought the promise of prosperity, they also brought death: malaria, typhoid and yellow fever. The humid heat of summer made it worse. Many workers, passengers and those who served them became ill, VanBecker’s wife among them.
He realized that if he were to continue providing lodging and meals for travelers, he needed a housekeeper. He offered the job to Mariah Heddwick, about whom he knew virtually nothing except that she had the reputation of being one of the finest cooks on the Wabash and Erie. There were those, however, who thought her a bit odd. From being considered odd to being considered dangerous, maybe even a witch, was a short jump in the 1840s.
VanBecker was a drinking man, as were many of the men who worked for him. James Furman, the orphan son of his neighbors, was an exception. Van never tried to force liquor on the boy, but when he and his men sat
