Program

Legends & Lore®

Subject

Folklore, Legend

Location

115 S 4th St, Waynesville, OH 45068, USA

Lat/Long

39.531156, -84.089858

Grant Recipient

Waynesville Area Heritage and Cultural Center, Inc.

In Waynesville, Ohio stands a distinctive building, the Museum at the Friends Home. A reservoir of local history, artifacts, and tales of the surrounding communities, the museum, ironically, is more alive in the night than during the day. When the sun sets and darkness falls, the gentle laughter of a child echoes through its halls—a ghostly vestige of an old sorrow that the walls have borne witness to.

The legend of Mary, a little girl whose spirit is said to inhabit the museum, dates back to the early nineteenth century. Jerry Lynch and her husband, ardent abolitionists, migrated from South Carolina to Waynesville. Parents to six or seven children, the couple first settled on Main Street before building their own homes across from the then-boarding house—now the museum. But fate took a grim turn, and both parents fell ill. To ensure their well-being, the children were sent to live with various families in the town.

While the husband succumbed to his ailment, Jerry Lynch battled through. As she recuperated, she began to reunite her dispersed family. One by one, she found them all—except little Mary. Despite her best efforts, Jerry never found Mary in her lifetime. Locals whisper tales of hearing Mary’s laughter ringing through the town, her spirit seen rocking on a chair in the museum’s sitting area or standing on the front porch, awaiting her mother’s return.