Mudhouse Mansion
Encyclopedia
Fairfield County, Ohio
Fairfield County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. As of 2010, the population was 146,156. Its county seat is Lancaster. Its name is a reference to the Fairfield area of the original Lancaster....
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, just east of the city of Lancaster
Lancaster, Ohio
Lancaster is a city in Fairfield County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 38,780. It is located near the Hocking River, approximately southeast of Columbus, Ohio. It is the county seat of Fairfield County...
. It is variously said to have been built sometime between 1840–1850, in the 1870s, or around 1900; the Second Empire style makes the 1870s seem most likely.
In 1839 or 1852 (year uncertain) Christian and Eleanor Rugh purchased the property from Abraham Kagy and Henry Byler. In 1919 the property was sold to Henry and Martha Hartman. Henry Hartman died in 1930 and the property was inherited by Lulu Hartman (m. Oren Mast), his daughter. Her descendants still own the land today, and locally the home was long known as the "Hartman Place." The same building is described as the "Rugh-Mast" house in the book Heritage of Architecture and Arts, Fairfield County, Ohio by Ruth W. Drinkle.
Like many abandoned properties, it has developed a reputation as a haunted house
Haunted house
A haunted house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property...
. Among the legends: after the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
a government official still kept slaves, locking them up at night. One night, one of the slaves dug himself free and killed the entire family (exceedingly unlikely, as Ohio was not a slave state). Another story sets the mass-murder or mass-suicide (by hanging) of a more recent family there. Still other local yarns assert that the house is the original home of the Bloody Mary
Bloody Mary (folklore)
Bloody Mary is a ghost or witch featured in English folklore. She is said to appear in a mirror when her name is called three times or sometimes more while in a dark room, depending upon the version of the story, often as part of a game or dare.-Overview:...
of children's lore, and that the house is haunted by a woman who killed her children, or by a woman whose husband killed their children, or by all of the parties involved in the tragedy.
The home has not been regularly occupied since the 1930s, though transients have lived there, including, reputedly, a group of hippies in the 1960s, and the once-grand structure has been damaged by fires and vandalism. The home itself is a beautiful, brick, Second Empire-style house built in the mid-19th century, in surprisingly good condition, considering its long neglect. Although the mansion is a favored destination for legend tripping
Legend tripping
Legend tripping, also known as ostension, is a name recently bestowed by folklorists and anthropologists on an adolescent practice in which a usually furtive nocturnal pilgrimage is made to a site which is alleged to have been the scene of some tragic, horrific, and possibly supernatural event or...
, the owner is said to prosecute trespassers vigorously, and to employ guards.