The Haunted Dark Carnival At Lake Shawnee
Marking The Paranormal Site In West Virginia Was The Deaths Of Three Innocent Children; Now The Non-Profit Park Preserves Its Daunting Past
Located along a small lake near the Blue Stone River is a piece of land that has a bloody history dating back almost to colonial times. Lake Shawnee was the site where the first white settler in Mercer County, Mitchell Clay, made his home. Clay did not live on the site long as in 1783 while he was out hunting, a band of Shawnee attacked his homestead killing two of his children, Bartley and Tabitha, and kidnapping another. Years later, an amusement park was built on the site where several accidents claimed the lives of three children. Today, the site is operated as a memorial to the history of the area where visitors from around the world come to seek a connection with the past and sometimes paranormal.
“My family bought the site in 1985 with the intention to put an amusement park in. My father worked at Lake Shawnee when he was a kid and his dream was always to buy Lake Shawnee. In 1985, he had that opportunity and we all pitched in together. Our intention was to put in an amusement park, but after running it for three years, there were things that came up that prevented it from working the way we wanted it to”, stated Chris White owner and operator of the site.
“We didn’t know the history of the area, the only thing we knew was the first settler in Mercer County had settled on the property. As we were cleaning up the property, one of the things we found was the headstone of Tabatha and Bartley Clay, which were the Mitchell kids that had gotten massacred by the native Americans. After we closed the amusement park, we had a mud bog going. It was growing and doing really well so we wanted to move the mud bog. We started bulldozing and we started finding arrow heads and little trinkets. So, after we bulldozed a while, my father decided we better stop and call in some archeologists, that would have been around 1989. When they started digging they first found a trading post, and then they started finding bodies. They went down another 12 inches or so from where we were bulldozing and they started finding graves. That’s how we found out about the history of the native Americans on the site”, recalled White.
In addition to the early American history of the area, the site was utilized for an amusement park from the 1920’s to the 1960’s. The park featured a Ferris wheel, swings, and swimming area. Over the years, there were several tragic events at the park that took the lives of three children. “It wasn’t closed because of the deaths, but there were some deaths that went on there. We have newspaper articles that talk about a little boy that drowned in the swimming pond. Then there was a little girl that was riding the swing and as the swing went around, there was a soda delivery truck that was delivering to one of the concession stands. It backed up in the path of the swing and the little girl hit the back of the truck and it killed her. There was also a boy that drowned in the lake itself. He was on an outing with his family and drowned in the lake. The boy drowned in 1966 and the park was closed in 1966, but I can’t find any evidence to connect the two”, explained White.
With all the tragedy that occurred at the site, it is not surprising to hear that apparitions have been seen. While White claims he has not had any personal experiences, he has seen things with other visitors and his family. “Gaylord, my father, was mowing the grass one time. He felt a weight on his shoulders and he turned to look and said he saw a little girl sitting on his fender. It kind of startled him and he didn’t know what to do. He actually got off the tractor, turned it off and as he was walking away, he just turned to the little girl and said if you like the tractor that much I’ll give it to you, and he pitched the keys to her. The tractor is still sitting in the same spot as where he left it”, claimed White.
“I’m not paranormal, but the paranormal community explained it to me as if you went fishing with someone who fishes all the time, who is going to catch more fish? Naturally the guy that goes fishing all the time, I wouldn’t catch many fish, I’m not a fisherman. I think it’s the same with paranormal stuff. I can tell you I have seen things happen when people come to the lake. I’ve seen the swings move by themselves and I’ve seen a guy get pitched out of the ticket booth”, said White.
When asked about the spirits present and whether or not he was afraid of them he stated, “It’s kids that passed away, it’s not insane asylum or prisoners or anything else. It’s just children so whenever I’m there I feel at peace. The main reason I want to keep it that way is because of the history. I’m more afraid of the living than I am of the dead”, White explained.
Lake Shawnee is generally open by appointment only. Visitors must call in advance, but can schedule day tours, overnight trips, and group ghost hunts on the property. However, in the month of October, the park is open every Friday and Saturday for the annual Dark Carnival. The event features story tellers and a haunted house. “The haunted house is called Lake Nightmare, it is set up on the other side of the park away from the Ferris wheel and swing. It is set up like a haunted trail, visitors go through buses, drain pipes moving floors a lot of things that we have set up. We have a lot of welders, engineers, and other guys that just donate their time to putting this thing together. It’s just over the top, it’s unbelievable the things they do”, touted White.
With White and his team of volunteers preserving the history of the area, Lake Shawnee provides an interesting stop any time of year. The operation is set up as nonprofit utilizing mostly volunteers to raise money for various charities. “Everyone involved is volunteers. They do it to raise money to keep it the way it is. We do some of the October event for other charities. The concession stand has gone to the Railroad Museum in the past, the haunted house, a lot of it goes to the Abused Children of West Virginia. We just wanted to do stuff where we can raise money for the community”, White explained.
Jared Langenegger
A graduate of New Mexico State University with B.S. in wildlife and fisheries science, Jared spent 15 years working in fisheries and parks management. He enjoys camping, fishing, hunting, painting, and wood working.
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