Headless Haddie

A scene from Camp Owens, which was located off of Owens Road near Pleasant Schools. Headless Haddie was said to be especially fond of preying on younger Scouts.

Have you ever heard of Headless Haddie? If you were a Marion Boy Scout who attended Camp Owens, chances are you probably have. Haddie terrorized Boy Scouts for seventy-odd years, and a story like the following, collected by OSU student Mike Sankey in the 70s, is typical:

I learned about [Headless Haddie] out at Camp Owens, which is south of Marion. The story goes [that] there’s a farm…which is a little bit north of the camp, and a couple lived there, and the wife’s name was Haddie. And one day the neighbors stopped by because they hadn’t heard from either Haddie or her husband for a few days, so they stopped by and they found her body but no head. The head had been chopped off. And the husband was never found. And so she haunts the camp and the area around there.

However, the origin of the Headless Haddie legend is nearly as interesting as the legend itself.

To read more about Headless Haddie, pick up a copy of Haunted Marion, Ohio.

8 thoughts on “Headless Haddie

  1. I lived in Marion in the 40’s and 50’s and am familiar with many of these stories / legends. I too was a scout and hiked out to Camp Owens many times, passing the Haddie house along the way. The story at that time was if you went in and stayed ’til after dark Haddie’s head would come bouncing down the stairs at you. Never tried it and didn’t know anyone who did, but a good story just the same. And if I remember correctly, the ceiling of the Palace Theatre was not dark. It was decorated with a bunch of lights that gave the impression of stars in the sky.

    1. I was a Boy Scout in Caledonia in the 1970’s, and we regularly went to Camp Owens. On every outing we took the new scouts into the woods to a foundation of where a building once stood and spooked them with Headless Haddie tales.

  2. This was one of the greatest stories, as young boy scout it sent creeps down your spine. I believe the story was, the house had statues and one of the heads had fallen off. To people passing by it looked like a headless woman floating around the house.

    And to Lee, the Palace ceiling is painted a deep cobalt blue and has lights in the attic that shine thru. There is also a light the projects moving clouds lazily across the sky.

  3. My ex brother-in-law (now dead) would take me and my sister out there where he would punch her and rape her. I was hoping that Headless Hattie would have come out and scared him to death. But no, he was able to beat and rape her and choke her. I just wish my parents would’ve listend to us when we told them. Now she’s living with a jackass named Ray Allen in Florida. She said she moved there because, in Florida, even if you don’t get married by a priest, you can still be married. I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s not what I am writing this for.

  4. When nine years old, my twin brother and I attended the East Cleveland Centerville Mills Camp. Our counselors told us of Headless Haddie whose head was staved into her neck by the kick of a rearing horse. She wandered and stumbled along in the camp’s woods with her right arm extended, seeking campers to harm. The story scared the by-Jeeves out of us at night, making it difficult to sleep.

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