T-L Photos/ROBERT A. DEFRANK Ghosts and ghouls of all kinds stalk the streets of St. Clairsville during a Halloween Bash Friday, where costumed adults visited businesses decorated for the season.

T-L Photos/ROBERT A. DEFRANK
Ghosts and ghouls of all kinds stalk the streets of St. Clairsville during a Halloween Bash Friday, where costumed adults visited businesses decorated for the season.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The horrific murder of Louiza Fox by finance Thomas Carr in 1869 left a mark on history and — some believe — in the invisible world as well.

For Halloween, the Belmont County Heritage Museum hosted presentations on haunting subjects last week. On Thursday, Belmont County Common Pleas Judge Frank Fregiato spoke about the crime, the trial and Carr’s hanging. On Friday, storyteller Judi Tarowsky shared some of the folklore surrounding this piece of area history.

She began by relating a few ghost stories from the Ohio Valley’s coal mining history, collected by Dr. Ruth Musick, folklorist at Fairmont State College. They included tales about the Benwood mine explosion of 1924, when 119 miners died. She said there have been rumors of odd occurrences at the Cooey-Bentz Furniture Company of South Wheeling, which served as a temporary morgue for the men and where their coffins were constructed.

Tarowsky said many today are tempted to think serial murder is strictly a modern phenomena.

“In the 19th century, evil was here in Belmont County, in the person of Thomas Carr, and he brought that evil — and the terrible death of Louiza Fox,” she said. “Theirs is a haunting, and a haunted tale.”

She said Carr demonstrated violent behavior from an early age, as well as an awareness of a “dark and wayward heart.” Tarowsky related some of the unconfirmed crimes he confessed to after Fox’s murder, chiefly committed during his time serving in the Civil War. These included claims of participating in sexual assault and murder while burning and looting in North Carolina. Carr said the spirit of this victim haunted his dreams.

“He claimed during the course of the Civil War, he killed 15 people, not in combat,” Tarowsky said. “Since these were done in the fog of war, there were no consequences.”

Carr also said he met and befriended German immigrant Joseph Eisele and helped him to ambush and murder another German immigrant, Aloys Ulrich, with a hatchet at the Hempfield Railroad Tunnel near Wheeling. Tarowsky said the crime has left an imprint persisting through today.

“Bikers going through that tunnel and sometimes walkers will report seeing that apparition of a man, floating near the roof of the tunnel. He’s bleeding from a horrible head wound,” she said, adding ghostly moans have also been heard from the tunnel.

Carr would later meet and court 13-year-old Louiza Fox. Carr was 23 at the time and Tarowsky said Fox’s family and friends would urge her to wait a few years before making the commitment. This would trigger Carr’s violent nature.

“Louiza’s mother addressed the elephant in the room. She said, ‘You may not marry.’ This happened right after the New Year, 1869. It was at that time that Louiza Fox’s fate was sealed,” Tarowsky said.

She described the frenzied murder on Starkey Road near Egypt Valley not far from Barnesville, where Carr savagely slashed Fox multiple times with a straight razor.

Tarowsky said Carr reportedly tried to kill himself while in hiding.

“He figured if he died near Louiza Fox’s home, they could be buried in the same cemetery,” Tarowsky said. “He said later she was the most beautiful corpse he’d ever seen.”

He was eventually captured, tried and found guilty. An appeal process delayed the hanging for a year, until March 21, 1870. During that time, he was held in a jail located on Sugar Street, St. Clairsville. A “parade” of clergy visited him until his hanging in the jail. He also made another suicide attempt in jail.

Tarowsky said Carr was hung while wearing the same suit he wore when he murdered Fox.

“But eternity wouldn’t arrive for another 20 minutes. The drop had not broken his neck,” Tarowsky said.

He was finally declared dead and buried in an unmarked grave at the city’s Methodist Cemetery.

“Louiza was buried in the Salem cemetery not far from her home,” she said. “People leave flowers and stuffed animals there. … But people say her spirit is seen walking through Salem Cemetery, and she’s even seen walking along Starkey Road to the spot where she was murdered. There’s a stone there that marks that spot, and people leave flowers there as well.

“Thomas Carr’s spirit is said to walk along Starkey Road. Is he still looking for Louiza?”

Tarowsky wondered if such violence and anger could ever really die.

“I have to wonder. Maybe ask yourself, if you’re walking down along Sugar Street and Newell Avenue … Thomas Carr walks along Starkey road, but maybe he walks down Newell Avenue from (his grave). Maybe he walks back to where that jail stood. And is he angry?”

“He sounds like he could be an evil person, that’s for sure,” Tracy Johnston, paranormal investigator with the Belmont County Spirit Seekers, said afterward, adding her group has visited the Salem Cemetery to investigate Fox’s grave. “You just never know what you’re getting into. We always pray, hopefully God protects us and we try to stay away from any of the darker spirits.”

“I didn’t know anything about that,” Joel Habursky of St. Clairsville said after the presentation. “This was the first we knew about it.”

The presentation was held in conjunction with an adult Halloween Bash on Main Street, where area businesses put up spooky decorations on their storefronts and inside.