MELON
HEAD ROAD
Location: Kirtland is
a suburb of Cleveland located at the intersection of Highway 306 and Highway
315. South of town, Wisner Road runs northward between the Euclid-Chardon Road
(Interstate 6) to Kirtland-Chardon Road near the East Chagrin River in the
North, ending just before Wisner Lake near Chardon Township. The Old Crowe
Orphanage was once located at 9509 Wisner Road near a bend in the creek, but it
no longer exists except for the foundation.
Description of Place:
No details have been found about the Old Crowe Orphanage except to say it was
once an old mansion that had been used as a convalescent home for Union Officers
after the Civil War. Wisner Road (Melon Head Road) runs a north-south trajectory
between Kirtland in the south and Chardon Township in the north.
Ghostly Manifestations:
In the files of paranormal phenomenon, no greater story pervades the annals of
the field than the story of the Ghostly Hitchhiker. Virtually every state in the
country has three to five versions of the tale. In the tale, a motorist
traveling or lost on a remote stretch of road picks up a young girl walking
alone by the side of the road, sometimes near an old bridge or treacherous
curve, offering her a ride if she will give him directions. From here, the
traveler and passenger engage in conversation on the long drive, but along the
way, the companion disappears from the moving car. The driver is startled and
unnerved, confused and searching for answers. He travels to the address of his
missing passenger, but the owner of the residence has no clue to the woman’s
identity. It is at this point the driver sees a photo in the home owner’s
house to identify the missing woman, and the answer is revealed that the missing
girl was killed in the accident where she was found. In some versions, the
driver is a teenager who lends the girl his jacket, and after tracking down her
grave, he finds his jacket draped over her tombstone. This tale has said to have
occurred near several locales, such as Chicago’s Resurrection Cemetery, the
road near New York’s Ramapo Cemetery and an interstate in Eastern Alabama. In
the area around Wisner Road north of Kirtland, Ohio, the figure isn’t so much
as a lonely female hitchhiker, but a group of kids resembling aliens from Mars.
What separates these ghostly children
from the ghostly hitchhiker lore and even from the ghosts of kids haunting train
tracks isn’t just the fact that they don’t hop in cars to get rides but the
fact that they all have large oversized heads. This is known as the medical
condition of hydrocephalia where there is excessive cerebrospinal fluid on the
brain. These figures are typically known as Melon Heads because of the shape of
their heads, but there also seems to be some inconsistency in many of the
sightings. Typically, they’re considered the ghosts of children who once loved
at the Old Crowe Orphanage that once existed on Wisner Road, but in other
sightings, they’re depicted as cryptids, capable of hunting and killing
animals. Yet, in others, they’re connected to UFOs and considered alien
entities. Whatever they are, the local populace certainly believes that
something is haunting the local woodlands.
"The area is located in Kirtland,
Ohio, down in the deep woods off of Wisner Road," Amy Christian with the
Lake County Historical Society has lived in the area several years, and even
visited the site several times in her youth. To this day, many of the people
visiting the area want to see the historical records on the area and the old
Crowe Orphanage. She tells the legends at Halloween gatherings every year and
has consulted several times with paranormal explorers visiting the area. She
continues:
"Crowe was a mad scientist and
kept these orphans that came to his property to do procedures on them. They
developed swelling of their brains and deformity of their heads, but eventually,
the kids got so tired of being abused by Dr. Crow and his wife, and they lit the
house on fire and burned Dr. Crow to death. From there, they realized they
didn’t have a place to go, so they took to the woods, and they survived by
stealing from neighbors and hiding in barns. After some time, the locals stopped
seeing them so apparently they all died off. That’s the legend, but they could
still be out here."
"Reportedly, Dr. Crow was a caring
and giving person, but the government was doing experiments on these children
and didn’t have a place for them. They showed up at Dr. Crow’s house in the
middle of the night and he and his wife took care of the children, but
eventually Dr. Crow died of natural causes in his home. The house caught on
fire, and the kids were alone and took to living in the woods." Another
legend claims.
In both legends, it is claimed that
mean-spirited locals began calling the children "melon heads" because
of their swollen heads, and over the years, the nickname stuck. So too did the
reported sightings, travelers and motorists have described their vehicles being
pelted by rocks from unknown sources or caught vision of these deformed children
appearing in the road. During a UFO craze in the 80s, a man driving north from
Chesterland said he saw a blinding light from the woods and an army of these
short large-headed figures coming from a strange craft.
“Well, I've got my own views on
this.” Amy continues, “I went to Wisner Road in Kirtland, to prove what was
real or what was fake. My aunt drove, her friend Meggan, My brothers, and their
friend came along. We got lost in the area of Mitchel's Mill and Wisner, but we
kept seeing shadows in the woods, and when we came along a black gate in the
woods of Wisner Road, we all had that gut feeling… the kind of feeling that
tells you that you aren't about to be in a good situation. Well, my brothers and
their friend thought it would be cool to make them not seem like sissys to get
out of the car. Well, they walked down a little side road for a few moments, and
my aunt and I got scared, so we beeped the horn several times.. and they ran
back to the car, all diving in. They claimed that there was something that ran
across the road. I recall it suddenly got extremely foggy outside. Momentarily,
my brother, Keith, realized he had lost his phone while running back to the car.
We were in no mood, and none of us had the courage to turn back.”
The majority of the Melon Head
sightings took place in the 1940s after the story of Doctor Crowe reportedly
occurred. The legend lasted through the 50s and 60s, but by the 70s, except for
a few cases, the stories seemingly slacked out entirely. It is generally
believed the legend had just run its course, but several people who didn’t
know about the legend have ended up having their own experiences.
“Growing up on the story of the Melon
Heads,” Chris Barrett starts. “My brother told me about the legend about the
Melon Heads. He said they were mutants and a part of Lake County History. I
thought it was more folklore than reality until I had my experience. It's not
folklore; it's reality. It's a fact because it's such a secluded and heavily
wooded area that it would be a great area for them to check it out.
One night in 1986, Chris Barrett and a
friend of his armed themselves with a belly full of liquid courage and drove out
to Wisner Road and down a dirt road to test the legend:
“I'm a skeptic. I don't believe it
unless I see. it I never thought, honestly, that I would see anything, and my
friend went “Look I saw something.” and I thought, “Oh, here it’s
coming. He's going to try and scare me, and he's like, “No I'm serious. I
thought I saw something.” I don't know what I was thinking, but something
inside of me says, I had to do it. So, I got my flashlight, and I saw the head,
and thought, “Oh, my God, is this happening to me.”
“Together, we saw a shadow go into
the woods, and I went into panic mode and I high-tailed it out of there.
Afterward, I wanted to stay. I'm a more adventurous person. I wanted to stay and
see what it was so I asked my friends to go back, but they didn't want to go
back. I told them I was going to go back and they said, “Okay, I guess we'll
be reading the newspapers tomorrow that the Melon Heads got you.”
“The more I thought about it, I
thought I had seen a wild animal in the woods. At most, I thought I'd seen a
squirrel or a deer. So, I got out of my car and walk to the end of the dirt
road. I could feel the heartbeat in my chest and the nerves because I'm alone,
and I heard a branch break, and I saw something… maybe food feet tall. So I
shone a flashlight on it to see what it was, and I couldn't believe it. Its head
was creepy. Eerie… I think I was more scared from the shock and panic, all
those emotions at once, and I thought, “Oh my god, I've got to get out of
here.” I was waiting for a hand to grab my shoulder any minute, but I
hightailed it out of there. Who knows what it was going to do to me. I thought
it was going to take one of my body parts or make me an example of me, but it
just let me off with a warning sign. You know, normally, I'm a tough guy, but
that incident still terrifies me to this day.”
For the most part, the Melon Heads seem
to be a passive bunch. However, every once in a while, one of them seems to grow
restless for contact with the outside world. Usually waiting until the cover of
darkness, a one or two would every so often slip outside their little woodland
commune and creep through the woods towards civilization. More often than not,
just a glimpse of the outside world would be all a Melon Head would need to send
them scampering back to the safety of their hiding places, somewhere in the
woods around Wisner Road.
No matter where they came from, the
Melon Heads legend is basically a Lover’s Lane legend or at most a local
teenage hazing ritual. Most kids in the area know somebody whose sister's best
friend knew a guy whose neighbor saw the Melon Heads one time. It is apparently
a popular thing for local high school kids to go on a drive around the area late
at night looking for them.
Mitch Greer reports: “I live in
Eastlake, Ohio, not far from Kirtland. I’ve heard many stories and have seen
many things in the woods of Kirtland. I’ve seen the burnt shack of Dr. Crow
and saw the chain that the "Melon Heads" reportedly hung his dead
corpse from. I can say as one person that the "Melon Heads" are in
fact real. Close to Kirtland, there is a small castle for picnics, gatherings
and miles of hiking trails. When you walk down these trails, you can see some
mutilated animals in the deep parts of the woods. I’ve been hiking back in the
woods for as long as I can remember. Not one time while strolling have I not
seen small dead animals and mutilated corpses and bones.”
Another witness says: “The story as I
have heard it is that Dr. Crow was a doctor who practiced medicine out of his
house in the early to mid 1800's. He had either been given these kids with
mental problems or he had kidnapped them from local mothers. He then ran
experiments on them, injecting their brains with water. This caused the kids to
become even more nuts, and their heads to swell up like melons. Anyway, he kept
them locked away in cages in a green barn next to his house. Now, at this point,
the story gets a little fuzzy...either the barn burnt down in an accident, and a
few of the Melon Heads escaped, but as far as I know, the barn is still there.
“Anyway, these Melon Heads still roam
the area out near the Holden Arboretum on Wisner Road. Supposedly, they come out
only at night, and if it is a full moon, they are extremely vicious and will
attack any humans they see. However, they have really bad vision at night. If
you wear dark clothes, such as blacks, reds, dark greens and blues, you will be
safe, but if you have on any bright colors or white, you are a prime target.
“Usually they just attack deer and
other forest animals for their food, but on those rare full moon occasions, they
will attack and rip a human limb from limb if they find one. This is the story I
have heard from numerous sources. I have gathered many stories from people who
have been out there and from just people who know the stories.”
"I know a lot about the Melon
Heads from friends and family.” Cliff Norton, a local hunter from nearby
Willoughby mentions. “I know the Dr. Crowe story is true, but there are
several facts missing. First of all, Dr. Crowe did exist, but he lived in the
1940s and was a dentist. There could have been another Dr. Crowe, though.
Second, full moons have nothing to do with their nasty behavior. I know this
from experiences with them, and from experiences that others have had. They’re
not ghosts as most people think, but a local version of Sasquatch.”
“My first experiences with what I
think were Melon Heads was on the East Branch of the Chagrin River.” Jason
Herrold from Chardon starts. “My brother and I were driving along Kirtland
Road, and I saw a quick flash out of the corner of my eye. I looked right, and
saw something by a tree. It was very blurry, though. I was so scared I screamed
and my brother looked out of his window. "What the hell was that?" he
said. I guess he saw it too, because he turned around at the spring and we
headed back.”
He continues. “At Wickliffe High
School in the Sixties, we heard a different version of the Melon Heads story.
Some kids were driving around one day and saw a Melon Head watching them from
the side of a country road. They stopped and the Melon Head ran into the woods.
They followed deep into the woods and came to an old farmhouse.
“On the porch sat a middle-aged
couple and several Melon Heads. The kids asked what was going on and the man
explained that he had been a nuclear scientist during World War II. After the
war he married, but the exposure to radiation caused all of his children to be
born as Melon Heads. The government gave him a lot of money to keep quiet and
bought this secluded farmhouse where they could live out their lives away from
prying eyes. He asked the kids to tell no one what they'd seen and never to
return..
“Someone told this story at a party
in the summer of 1964. Someone else thought they knew where the Melon Heads
lived, so we all crammed into cars and headed out to find them, and we got
stopped by the police near Old Souls Cemetery. When they found out where we were
going, they gave us a stern lecture that there were no such things and that we
should tell all our friends that we had to stop being so foolish. We were taken
to the police station, where we had to call our parents to come and get us.
“It didn't look anything like
anything I've heard in the stories. He looked about the same height as myself
and was wearing brown pants, which were very ripped up and where the seams would
be, held together by what looked like corn husk. It wore a white shirt with
brown and red stains all over it. It’s head was a very light-brown tint. It
had two holes in the sides of its head which I think were ears. Its head was
swollen and its eyes were very big looking. Just as we turned a curve, it jumped
into the woods and disappeared.”
“We all agreed that the police were
so intense in trying to convince us that there were no Melon Heads that there
had to be Melon Heads. If not, why were the police so upset that we were looking
for them?”
Another account: “I had my own
experience with the Melon Heads. It was on October 5, 2001. My stepfather, mom,
stepbrother, and I were driving down Chillicothe Road in Chardon. We had been
driving up and down roads in the same area looking for them for almost an hour
with no luck. We were just about to go home when we came up on this stretch of
road that had fields on both sides and an irrigation ditch running parallel with
each side of the road. Just then, I looked out my window and I saw one… a
Melon Head! He, or it, was running along our car next to the ditch, and since
the ditch was too wide to jump over, it was coming close and then pulling away.
At the time, we were going about 45 to 50 mph. It was actually keeping up with
us.”
It should be noted that there’s a
road in Trumbull named Velvet Street (sometimes referred to as Dracula Drive)
that’s also famous for being one of the roads occupied by the mutant hospital
escapees known as the Melon Heads. Other so-called Melon Head sightings have
been made in Florida, Alabama and Minnesota.
History: The
area of Kirtland was first surveyed by explorer Moses Cleaveland and his party
in 1796. Founded in that year, Kirtland is named for Turhand Kirtland, a
principal of the Connecticut Land Company and judge in Trumbull County and a
veteran of the American Revolutionary War. He was known for his bravery,
resourcefulness, and passion for justice. His son, Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland,
founded a medical college in nearby Willoughby, Ohio, and compiled the first
ornithology of Ohio.
Since 1811, Kirtland has been known for
being the early headquarters of the Latter Day Saint movement and the site of
the first Mormon temple, the Kirtland Temple, which was completed in 1836. Being
less well suited to agriculture, the densely forested, clay soiled, high, hilly,
land of Kirtland was settled later than surrounding townships with many of its
settlers arriving in the later half of the 19th Century.
Wisner Road was established alongside
Wisner Creek as one of the passageways between Mentor Road and Kirtland Road
(now Kirtland-Chardon Road). There has been very few residences along the way,
much of it is relatively dense woodlands and watersheds in the twists and turns
of the creek. To this day, the area about the Old Crowe Orphanage has been used
as a Lover’s Lane area by amorous teenagers as well as a site for several
college and high school hazing rituals. Cult activity has been reported here
too, possibly attributing to some of the darker aspects being described here.
Identity of Ghosts:
The legend of the Melon Heads originates with Dr. Leonard Crowe, a 1930s medical
practitioner from the now defunct Fairfield Hills State Mental Hospital in
Newtown, Connecticut. Not much is known about Crowe. He learned his degree from
the University of Edinburgh and arrived in Connecticut in 1929. While at
Fairfield Hills, he was placed in charge of the pediatric wing, often treating
orphans and children of homeless people, but at some point, he started treating
children coming in with hydrocephalia, trying to cure the condition. Two other
children came from an orphanage near Velvet Road in nearby Trumball that had
closed down. In treating the disease, he called upon doctors in the area and
across the country for research and therapy tips, subsequently ending up with
around fifteen to twenty children suffering the deformity. Some of the children
died in his care, but whether it was the disease or his treatments that took
their lives is unconfirmed. Some of the deceased children were buried in a
cemetery near the orphanage out of convenience.
Eventually, Crowe was called upon to
replace a local physician near Kirtland, Ohio and by purpose or design, Crowe
took the children with him, moving them with himself into the former
physician’s mansion and clinic near the watershed on Wisner Road near
Kirtland. He married Lorraine Crowe, a nurse, shortly after moving to the area,
and she worked with him to care for the children. However, his regular patients
seeing the large bulbous headed children started to become wary of him and
started believing he was conducting strange experiments. He had few successes to
alleviate the disorder without surgery, but as the children who survived grew
older, they became temperamental and even difficult to each other. At some point
in 1933, three years after their arrival, Lorraine passed away from an
undisclosed illness. (Some myths erroneously claim she took her life after being
confined with the malformed children.) It is believed that at this point the
older kids became tired of the experiments, their loss of a mother figure and
Crowe as their only source to the outside world and retaliated by starting a
fire that grew out of control and took Crowe’s life as well as the location,
the surviving kids escaping into the woods and engaging in a feral existence.
From there, legend and rumor seem to
have taken over the story. In several versions, Crowe’s reputation is sullied
to the point he is referred to as a “mad scientist.” In others, the children
are victims of bizarre secret government experiments. Dubbed “Melon Heads,”
the ghosts of the children have been seen and heard all along Wisner Road as
well as Velvet Road south of Newtown, Connecticut which is sometimes called
“Dracula Road.” The legend has even been carried to other states beyond both
Ohio and Connecticut.
There are a few offshoots of the Melon
Heads legend in which a doctor is featured predominantly. In those versions, the
doctor's name is Crowe (or Crow). In the first version, Dr. Crowe has somehow
managed to acquire, either by kidnapping or through a secret deal with the
mental hospital he works at, several individuals that he subjects to bizarre
experiments, most of which focus on the brain and head. Due to the severe
trauma, the individuals' heads are deformed and misshapen, but since some of Dr.
Crowe's experiments also included lobotomies, the Melon Heads are rather docile,
if not a bit slow. So every once in a while, Dr. Crowe would "lose" a
subject for a short period of time, and then he would always be able to round
them up rather quickly and return them.
There is also a variation of the tale
that focuses less on Dr. Crowe and more on his wife. This time, Dr. Crowe and
his wife are living in an isolated cabin in the woods and have been asked to
care for a group of children stricken with hydrocephalia. Due to the swollen
heads, mean-spirited locals began calling the children Melon Heads and the name
stuck.
It is said that while assisting her
husband in lovingly caring for the hydrocephalic children, Mrs. Crowe began to
see how the “Melon Heads” nickname was hurting the children's feelings. Her
motherly instincts kicking in, she drew the children closer to her, protecting
them from the outside world. In turn, the children began to look at Mrs. Crowe
as their very own mother. Unfortunately, when she passed away one day, it sent
the children's collective world crashing down. Feeling they were now lost
without their mother, the children panicked and began running and thrashing
about the Crowe cabin. Dr. Crowe attempted to calm them, but to no avail. In the
ensuing melee, a lit kerosene lantern was knocked to the floor, which set the
place on fire. Fed by the old wood of the cabin, the fire soon engulfed
everything, including Dr. Crowe and all the children, who returned after death
to haunt the grounds..
The final legend associated with the
Melon Heads doesn't even mention them, but it bears discussion because Dr. Crowe
is the central figure. Besides, it's the most disturbing of all the variants. In
this last version, Dr. Crowe performs illegal abortions in his cabin in the
woods and even manages to find the time to kill a deformed baby or two in his
spare time. Afterwards, he would bury the tiny bodies around the knoll near his
cabin. It’s supposed to be abandoned now, but the basement of the doctor's
house is said to echo with the cries from the departed babies as does the area
surrounding the knoll. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that the
bridge near where Dr. Crowe's cabin is now officially a Crybaby Bridge.