The Bloody Bridge in St. Marys, Ohio
Along Route 66 in St. Marys, Ohio, there is a bridge that crosses the Miami-Erie Canal known as the Bloody Bridge. And, if you visit it after sundown, you might bump into the headless man whose story helped create the legend.
The Bloody Bridge Legend
In the early 1850s, Jack Billings and Bill Jones were two mule drivers pulling boats carrying supplies and people along the canal. By all accounts, the two were friends and never displayed any malice towards each other, but that would change in 1854.
That year Jack oversaw the mules driving the Daisy while Bill oversaw the ones driving the Minnie Warren and here is where the problems started. The Minnie Warren was named after its Captain’s daughter, Minnie. She was a beautiful woman in charge of the boat’s culinary department and caught the attention of Jack and Bill.
At first, the two teased each other about their crushes, tossing some friendly banter to each other from either side of the canal but after Minnie noticed Jack, it all changed. According to legend, Minnie instantly fell for the “kind-hearted” Jack and the two started a not-so-private relationship that enraged Bill.
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Jack and Bill’s relationship deteriorated and though they remained on speaking terms, many say there was anger and hatred behind their words. Oftentimes Jack would blow a kiss to Minnie who watched him from the boat and would catch a seething Bill angrily whipping his mule.
One night in the fall of 1854 everyone who was anyone was attending a party referred to as the “social event of the district”. Jack and Minnie attended hand in hand, conversing with others and dancing through the night. Bill on the other hand was said to have attended with a sour look on his face that transformed into a rage as the night went on.
Just a few hours before sunrise the party finally ended with Jack and Minnie being the few partygoers still in attendance. The two left still hand in hand walking through the night and they came upon the bridge where something induced a terrifying panic in them.
From the shadows appeared Bill Jones with a terrible smile on his face and in his hands, he held an ax. Bill swung his ax at Jack with such force his head was severed cleanly off of his body. In the distance, a few neighbors heard Minnie’s screams and ran toward the bridge.
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As they arrived they saw Bill Jones holding his bloody ax and Minnie Warren screaming in fear. She took a step back and fell off the bridge landing in the ditch below, her lifeless body then rolled into the shallow water. According to legend, the witnesses jumped in and pulled her body out but by then Bill Jones had disappeared.
Due to his disappearance, many believed Bill Jones committed suicide after the murders but they could never be sure. A few years later, a skeleton was found in a nearby well and, though it couldn’t be identified, many believed it was Bill Jones who had fallen in during his escape.
A Haunted Bridge
It wasn’t long after the murders that some started to report seeing a headless man wandering the bridge after sundown. Meanwhile, no matter how much rain fell, the bloody spot where Jack’s head landed never lost its red stain.
Others claimed that if you stood in the spot where Minnie fell and looked down at the water, you would see her staring back at you. But some people have claimed to see both Jack and Minnie staring back at you, together even in death.
In the 1890s the once wooden bridge was replaced but before the pieces could be destroyed many came from miles out to take pieces of the bridge home. They believed the ghosts of the lost lovers would disappear with the bridge but they were wrong. According to legend even after the new bridge was constructed the headless ghost of Jack and the visions of Minnie were still witnessed.
In 1976 the Auglaize County Historical Society placed a small monument with a plaque commemorating the bridge with its name, “Bloody Bridge”
But Did it Happen?
Is the story of the Bloody Bridge in Ohio true? Probably not. The first record of this legend I could find was 40 years after it supposedly occurred. An article from the Sunday edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer from November 25th, 1894 titled Pretty Minnie details the story as I’ve told above.
Interestingly the author points out that though many call it the bloody bridge, most don’t know where the name came from. The author also makes no allusions that the story is anything but legend until the very last sentence where they call it a crime.
As far as the stories of ghost sightings and Minnie in the water, that doesn’t appear in the newspaper article either. The author never reports or claims anyone saw any ghosts. The ghost stories seem to have come after 1894.
It’s well known that newspapers in the 1800s made up and reported legends as fact. This is especially true on Sundays when newspapers contained more pages and needed to fill space. But, this doesn’t necessarily disprove the legend.
Looking through birth, death, and census records I could find no real matches for Minnie Warren, Jack Billings, or Bill Jones that fit the timeline of the story. The only Minnie Warren on record in Ohio that could have been a match, showed up in the 1870’s census alive and well. There were multiple William (Bill) Jones but none matched the timeline and Jack Billings doesn’t seem to have ever existed in Ohio in the 1850s.
Does this disprove the legend? Not entirely, there are many reasons why records from the 19th century wouldn’t be complete and it’s possible the names of those involved changed throughout the years. But, looking through the Cincinnati Enquirer archives for the 1850’s I also couldn’t find any article detailing a murder on the bridge.
So, in the end, it’s highly unlikely the story actually happened.
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