Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller, Holly Eller
Date: August 3, 2024 & September 6, 2024
As we bicycled two miles north of the Milford Trailhead along the Little Miami Scenic Bike Trail near milepost 47.5 at Miamiville, we noticed historical kiosks talking about a Civil War raid and a train disaster at this location. The bike path is a former railroad track. This rails to trail bike trail is the third longest paved trail in America. After research I discovered that this site has paranormal activity. First, the history story.
Confederate Gen. John Morgan’s 2,000 cavalrymen pulling wagons and artillery, forded the Little Miami River on July 14, 1863. A half mile southeast of Porter’s Mill Ford, they cut telegraph lines and sabotaged the Little Miami Railroad by piling railroad ties and wedging them into the cattle guards. As a passenger train pulled by the locomotive “Kilgour” with 115 Union raw recruits headed south toward Camp Dennison, it went too fast around a blind curve (named Dangerous Curve) and struck the The ghost has been seen on the bike path, on a nearby road and sometimes watches a farmer plow his field. boobytrap damaging and rerailing several train cars. One train fireman Cornelius Conway was killed and the engineer seriously injured.
Later that day, Morgan’s calvary slashed across the Little Miami River at Porter’s Mill to capture a bridge ¾ mile west of Miamiville. They succeeded. They then galloped into Miamiville to destroy the Little Miami Railroad Bridge. Union Lt. Smith’s 200 militiamen arrived by train and drove the Confederates to the north bank of the river before the bridge could be blown. A long-range firefight began. After a three-hour battle, another Union squad attacked the Confederates from the rear and drove the Confederates away saving both bridges. The Confederates had six men killed, the Union one killed and one missing.
My research revealed that there have been several sightings of a ghostly apparition dressed like a trainman who was killed in the train wreck by Morgan’s Confederate raiders. Due to the deadly trauma of his death, is it possible that railroad employee Cornelious Conway still haunts this area near the train crash? Reports began shortly after Conway’s death of an apparition walking along the tracks.
In 1905 when trains still operated on the track, a young man was walking home on the foggy track when he saw 20 feet ahead a figure holding a lantern. He told his dad it must be the ghost of Conway warning travelers of the fog-obstructing safe viewing distance ahead on the track. People who fish at night on the Little Miami River sometimes see a misty figure holding a lantern on foggy nights.
In the summer of 1932, a night passenger train out of Cincinnati was speeding through the area when the engineer saw a man walking in the middle of the track with his back to the train. He blew the whistle, stopped the train, got out but found no man nor a body.
In more recent times the ghost has been seen on the bike path, on a nearby road and sometimes watches a farmer plow his field. My brief investigation consisted of taking many photos and doing EVPs, but I did not produce any evidence of the paranormal claims. I would like to return and do another investigation some foggy evening.
