Darby-Lee Cemetery Can be accessed from the Bender Mountain Trail, 6320-6468 Bender Road, Delhi Township West Siders, you may have heard of Fiddlers Green Road, but have you heard the legend of Fiddler’s Green? (Which actually has nothing to do with that particular road.) It goes back to the Darby-Lee family of Delhi Township, members of which are buried in a small graveyard at the top of Bender Mountain – the only known, remaining family cemetery in Delhi. Patriarch of the family Henry Darby was rumored to have been part of the Underground Railroad. The legend of Fiddler’s Green goes that he would sit up on the ridge of his property overlooking the Ohio River into Kentucky. When it was safe for those fleeing enslavement to cross the river and come up the ridge to his home, Darby would light a lantern with a green flame and play his fiddle. On some nights now, you can supposedly see an otherworldly green glow from the cemetery and hear the strains from a fiddle being played nearby. Photo: Katherine Barrier

Maybe this comes as no surprise to anyone in or near Ohio, but Ohio is the spookiest state in the country, according to a recent study by High 5 Casino.

With Halloween almost upon us, High 5 Casino wanted to see which states ranked the highest in spooky factors, including haunted attractions, horror-themed escape rooms, ghost sightings and average haunted house ratings. The casino gathered data on each of these factors for every state from scarefactor.com, then normalized the factors to provide each one with a score between 0 and 1. Those values were then added together to give each state a total score out of 10, with Ohio ranking the highest at 8.00. Illinois ranked second at 6.96, followed by California at 6.80.

Now what makes Ohio spookier than all the other states? According to the study, it’s our high number of haunted attractions — 134, according to scarefactor.com — as well as the high ratings for our haunted houses: an average 8.42 out of 10. We’ve also had 19 recorded ghost sightings in just this year (our neighbor Indiana was close behind at 18 ghost sightings), as well as 32 horror-themed escape rooms — the fifth-highest number on the list.

It’s easy to see how Ohio ranked so high. Greater Cincinnati alone has plenty of spooky sights for the Halloween season, including attractions like Kings Island’s Halloween Haunt, where the park transforms into multiple “scare zones;” Land of Illusion’s Haunted Scream Park, featuring several haunted houses; and the much-beloved Dent Schoolhouse. We’ve also been known for our hauntings, with places like Bobby Mackey’s former building and the Sedamsville Rectory appearing on ghost-hunting TV shows. Another study also showed Ohio has the third-highest number of ghost encounters.

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But it’s not just Ohio that’s pretty spooky. Our neighbors Indiana and Kentucky also ranked in the top 10 of spookiest states in this study. Indiana tied with Florida for the No. 4 ranking at 6.11 out of 10, thanks to its high number of ghost sightings, 86 haunted attractions and 19 horror-themed escape rooms. As for Kentucky, it placed ninth with a score of 4.82, with 76 haunted attractions, 11 horror-themed escape rooms and 11 ghost sightings this year.

You can read more about the study here.

This article appears in Oct 16-29, 2024.

Katherine Barrier is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s journalism program and has nearly 10 years of experience reporting local and national news as a digital journalist. At CityBeat, she...