Athens Mental Hospital

// December 27th, 2012 // Violent Ghosts

Introduction

The Athens Mental Health Center, in Athens County, is located on a hill across from the flowing
Hocking River in Ohio. It opened in January 9, 1874 on land purchased from a local farmer named
Coates. In recent years, the State Hospital campus also known as The Ridges, has been absorbed
into the Ohio University campus and now houses several of the University buildings. Clearly, lots of
changes have taken place on this plot of land, but there still exists some original remnants of the
old institution and they are not wholly physical remnants

Many years ago, mental institutions were considered peculiar places indeed. The Athens Mental
Health Center was an infamous facility that was used to house the criminally insane, patients that
were written off as useless to society. Various stories exist of atrocities that occurred within its
walls. Beatings, tortures, and other cruel forms of punishment were apparently the norm for its
day and there have even been many reports of deaths and murders occurring within the facilitys
walls.

Facility History

The institution was closed in the 1980s during the time when the Reagan administration closed
many of the states hospitals in order to realize budget savings. Many of the inmates were simply
released on the streets and now account for much of Athenss relatively large homeless
population. Ohio University acquired most of the institutions campus and many of the buildings
have been or are being refurbished to be used as administration buildings. Several of the buildings
are open to the public where interested parties can take guided tours and hear of the atrocities
and appalling treatment the hospitals inmates were forced to endure. One of the more popular
stories provides the tourists with a vivid and grim reminder of how important a normal
functioning mind can be.

Margaret Schilling

Shortly before the institution closed, an inmate by the name Margaret Schilling, mysteriously
disappeared from the campus. The January 12, 1979 issue of the Athens Post ran a story on the
incident and calmly asked the public for any assistance they could provide. A search party was
assembled by the authorities, but no trace of Marge could be found. The center then
subsequently closed and the episode was quietly forgotten. A few weeks later, a maintenance man
named Clarence Allison was working in Ward N.20 when he made a shocking discovery in the attic
of the facility. Marges body, which had been decaying for 5 weeks, was found sprawled on the
floor. The authorities surmised that Marge had hidden herself in the attic of the building.
Demented and unable to care for herself, Marge had simply died of starvation in the very spot she
chose to hide.

After removing the body, the officials were surprised to find a clearly shaped, dark outline of her
body superimposed on the floor. The outline revealed many details the folds and wrinkles of her
clothes and even the style of hair she wore at death, were clearly visible. The stain was cleaned by
maintenance workers but mysteriously reappeared after a day or two. After many more attempted
cleanings it was soon apparent that the stain was not going to go away. Scientists that have
examined the mysterious stain, have reasoned that the stain was caused by the decomposition of
her body, an occurrence not entirely unheard of. Today, the stain on the marble floor is still
unmistakably visible and is a peripheral point of the campus tours.

Cemeteries in the area

Another popular focal point of the facility is one of the campuss notorious cemeteries. The
cemetery still remains, located on the edge of the grounds, as a grim reminder of the institutions
earlier days. With rows and rows of perfectly aligned graves, the innocuous inmates were not even
provided the dignity of a marked grave. Each plot contains a small stone engraved with nothing
more than the residents assigned patient number. In one area of the cemetery, amongst the
perfectly straight rows of unmarked graves, is a circular arrangement of headstones. Nobody is
sure why the graves were arranged in this manner, as there is nothing apparently unique about the
graves. What is known though, is that this particular spot is a favorite meeting place for witch
havens and other alternative religions that are located in the nearby area.

There are several other cemeteries in the area that have gained notoriety as centerpieces of
paranormal activity. In fact, the British Society for Psychical Research rates the Hannings Cemetery
as the 13th most haunted place in the world. Area residents are quite familiar with the many
reports of strange noises, ghostly apparitions, and odd disappearances that have occurred in and
around the Hannings cemetery.

The most talked about and most frequent Hannings Cemetery sighting is of an old man, wearing a
hooded robe, who chases people out of the cemetery with his sickle. Simms Cemetery, also listed
as one of the top haunted places on Earth by the British Society for Psychical Research, is where
youll find the Hanging Tree. The cemetery was named after John Simms, a local official known for
his many merciless trials and hangings during the 1800s. The tree still stands and the rope scars
are still quite visible to anyone brave enough to enter the immediate area surrounding the tree.
West State Cemetery, currently unused, also produces a large number of mysterious reports.
Containing many unmarked graves, graves of fallen soldiers, and even a few infamous killers, the
cemetery contains an odd piece of art called the Angel Statue. The statue, placed there to
commemorate the fallen soldiers buried on the grounds, has been reported by many to suddenly
flap its wings and to occasionally weep real tears.

Wilson Hall

Stranger still, the 5 area cemeteries, if viewed on a map, form the perfect shape of a pentagram
with Wilson Hall, another building located on the Athens campus, lying perfectly centered in the
middle of the geometric arrangement. Wilson Hall, located on the West Green, was first opened in
1964. Most new students are quickly warned that Wilson Hall is reputed to be haunted. In fact,
one room, room 428, is closed and permanently sealed due to the number of unusual sightings
that have been reported there. Students tell stories of objects flying off of shelves and smashing
into the walls, doors mysteriously opening and closing, toilets flushing, tables and chairs bouncing
off the floors, and the appearance of the ghost of a student who died violently in the room. The
student, deeply involved in the occult, was killed (or committed suicide) in the room during the
early 1970s. It was said that the student practiced astral projection, a method where the human
spirit separates from the body and travels on its own. There were also rumors that she often
dabbled in sorcery and made various attempts to contact the dead

Spiritualists have claimed that the geography of the Athens area, the layout of the mountains,
peaks, and valleys, makes it extremely conducive to psychic energy. In the early 1980s, while
researching a illuminating article about the Mental Institute, the Athens Post did a routine
examination of the property records for the institute. They were astonished to discover that
Wilson Hall had been built on the exact same location as the original site of an earlier graveyard
used by the Athens Mental Institute.

The Movie Grave Encounters (2011)

In 2011, the horror mockumentery Grave Encounters was released and featured fictional
camcorder footage from a mental institution named Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital. The mental
institution featured in the movie is somewhat of a secret but rumors are that at least parts of the
movie, if not all, were based on the haunted Athens Mental Hospital.

The Ridges

Formerly The Athens Lunatic Asylum

Many mental institutions in the United States are said to be haunted and thus The
Ridges from Athens, Ohio, is no exception to that. If you have ever watched a horror movie, you
must have observed that these types of buildings are presented as hulking structures with lots of
cobwebs and ghosts that are waiting and haunting at each corner. The abandoned buildings are
even worse when it comes to haunting rumors. The Ridges from Athens, Ohio is one of the
abandoned places that are said to be powerfully haunted.

The Mental Medical Centre opened here on January 9th 1874 and it specialized in the treatment of
criminally and mentally insane patients. It was then known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum. It took
over six years to be built and many people thought that a nice quiet place would be a benefit for
the health of the insane patients. The majority of the original patients were admitted there by
court order or even by their own families. Sometimes these kinds of mental institutions paid an
amount of money for every patient they registered when they were lacking them so many families
entrusted them with their disturbed family members.

Everyone knew that, despite the large number of disturbed individuals residing there, The
Ridgeswas a calm peaceful place, where patients benefited from fountains and picnics on the
beautiful grounds. But this idyllic scenery would not to last a long time. The Ridges soon turned
into an overcrowded institution that was treating its patients in a cruel way. Ice water baths,
electroshock therapies and lobotomies become regular practices. The kinds of patients submitted
to treatment also changed, because children turned their older parents over to the asylum and
teenagers that were considered rebellious were brought here by their parents as well.

Several other strange things have happened at The Ridges, besides the cruel treatment applied to
the patients. On the 1st of December 1978, a patient named Margaret Schilling mysteriously
disappeared. The legend says she was playing hide and seek with the nurses, who got distracted
and forgot to look for her. Over more than a month, on the 12th of January 1979 her body was
found by a maintenance worker.

Her death was not as mysterious as the marks her body left on the floor. An imprint of her clothes
and hair are perfectly visible on the floor. Some said that her body decomposed and the outline
was formed because of the reaction of the corpse to the sunlight. This is not a very good
explanation, though, because the stain is still there and reappears even after been cleaned up.
Margaret Schilling is not the only former patient that is said to be still haunting The Ridges.

The Asylum has a cemetery where those who died were buried and there are rumors it is haunted
as well. Because many of the patients were admitted at The Ridges by the court system, they had
no remaining family and no persons to pay the funeral expenses. They were thus anonymously
buried in simple graves with a number attached. At one area the linear shapes of the graves form a
circle, which is said to be a witches meeting point.