Abandoned Road off Tick Ridge Road: Simcoe Ghost
New Plymouth, Ohio

Not far from Union Furnace, in an isolated pocket of forestland, there is a mysterious valley with a meandering stream. A rugged road once led past an old wooden shack deep in the valley where the land became swampy, and most were reluctant to live. Few traveled the old road for years because mournful cries and death moans were often heard at a certain point along its path. Then, a form surrounded by a smoky haze would arise from a darkened bit of earth, trudge a short distance, and disappear at the shack.
Most who came upon this terrifying sight did not know why this ghost haunted the valley. However, a few knew that during the late 1800s, a wealthy landowner in Virginia had a beautiful daughter, and he arranged her marriage to an equally prosperous but much older man. The young woman had fallen in love with the son of the family's poor groundskeeper, and no amount of beseeches or demands could persuade the girl to marry the man her father intended.
Desperate to be rid of the groundskeeper's son and wishing the young woman would come to her senses, the father offered his daughter's young sweetheart a deal that he knew the younger man would, most likely, never be able to fulfill. If the groundskeeper's son were to leave Virginia for several years, find work, and gain a certain amount of wealth and fortune, he would have the wealthy landowner's consent to marry his daughter upon his return.
The young couple agreed, and the young man set off to find his fortune. He ended up in southern Ohio, working as a bookkeeper in Zaleski for a coal mining and iron furnace company, where he had the opportunity to acquire nearly enough to wed the wealthy landowner's daughter. A bit short of the money needed to complete the pact, the business owner for whom the young man worked died and lost all his investments, so the groundskeeper's son was out of work.
Few jobs were available in Zaleski, so the desperate groundskeeper's son found work not far away in Union Furnace, cutting down timber and making charcoal with a seedy character named Shank. Shank lived in a once beautiful and lush tree-covered valley with a meandering stream and a road that passed his little wooden shack. However, by the time the groundskeeper's son went to work for him, the dark woods were nearly laid bare by the greedy old lumberman who knew he would soon be in ruin without a forest to plunder.
The young man carefully concealed the money he had made to earn his beloved's hand in marriage. Still, he did not notice Shank often hungrily eyeing the small purse where he kept his possessions carefully concealed in the shack beneath his pillow. One night, the groundskeeper's son and Shank were burning logs to make charcoal for the furnaces near the road and the shack. Looking around the barren landscape and knowing there was nothing left to take from it, and he had not a penny in his pocket, Shank was overcome with wrath. He bashed the young man over the head with a shovel he was using to move the burning wood. The old lumberman killed him instantly and tossed the groundskeeper's son into the burning coal. He stole the man's money, slunk into the night, and was never seen again.
After that, a new but scantier woodland regrew from the valley, despoiled by lumbering and nearly demolished by strip mines. The shack fell to ruin. Still, the young man's ghost would cry out with rage at being unable to depart this God-forsaken bit of earth. Then, he would emerge from the blackened bit of burnt land cursed by senseless murder and unfinished business, moaning from his burden as he rose, smoky haze clinging to his death clothes. He would trudge a short distance to where the shack once stood, then vanish.