Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This account of of an ice-skating “ghostlets” appeared in the “Buffalo Enquirer,” January 8, 1903:

During the last week a number of railroad men, employed nightly about the northeast section of the Lackawanna Steel Plant at Stony Point have seen what they believe to be a ghost, walking on the ice about twenty feet from the shore at Lake Erie. So firm are some of the workmen in their belief they have seen a ghost and that the place is haunted that a number of them have actually refused to work in that section of the plant. 

The place where the ghost is supposed to have appeared on the ice was named Dead Man's Hole by boys who formerly went swimming at Stony Point before the Steel Plant occupied the grounds. It is a narrow inlet about 100 feet east of the breakwall and was a desirable place for youngsters to swim in. During the past five years no less than half a dozen boys from South Buffalo lost their lives while bathing in this inlet. Because of the number that have been drowned there and the number of bodies which have floated ashore at that point, it was named Dead Man's Hole. 

On Monday night a crew of railroad men were at work near Dead Man's Hole. One of the switchmen who happened to be near the lake shore claims that he saw the figure of a man, black as ink, dancing on the ice about twenty feet from the shore. He was terror-stricken by the sight and-rushed with all haste to the engine and informed the other members of the crew. About 12 o'clock the entire crew went to the lake and while standing there they all claim to have seen the figure of a man appear and then disappear on the ice. At Dead Man's Hole the ice at the present time is not more than an inch thick. 

"People might laugh and say we only Imagined we saw a ghost," said an engineer to an Enquirer reporter, but it's a fact, nevertheless, that we saw a black figure, the blackest object I ever looked at in my life, dancing on that ice. It would be in one place one minute and in another the next. Then It would go beneath the ice.

"This is not the first time that workmen out here at the plant have been frightened by a ghost.  About two months ago fifteen Italians refused to shovel sand down there near Dead Man's Hole at night. When they told their story about seeing a ghost and the place being haunted everyone in the works laughed and made fun of them, but I guess they were right after all.

"You want to know what the ghost looked like? Well, it was simply the form of a man about six feet tall. As I said before, it was black as it could be. For the few seconds that we stood there and locked at it, and, mind you, there were at least ten of us, it never once made an attempt to come near the shore. There are no buildings or trees nearby from which a shadow could originate and appear on the ice. It was a ghost all right." 

During the Pan-American year the bodies of three unknown men were found floating in Dead Man's Hole, all within a month. They were never identified. The place is not more than twenty yards in length.

Whether it was truly haunted or not, I think we can all agree that Dead Man’s Hole certainly lived up to its name.