Magee Park is a smallish park just off Little Sugarcreek Road in Bellbrook. Although it looks unassuming and quiet, it is smack dab in the middle of a city dubbed, “Ohio’s Sleepy Hollow.”

As the legend goes, in the late 1800s, around the 1880s, a young servant girl had an affair with her master, the mayor of Bellbrook. As these things go, she soon found herself pregnant. Once he discovered she was pregnant, he turned her away from his home, and refused to see her again. Desperate, the young girl turned to prostitution to feed herself and the baby growing inside her.

Her baby was born, and she walked the streets at night carrying a small bundle wrapped with blankets. Talk among the town was that she wouldn’t let anyone see the baby’s face, because it bore a striking resemblance to its father. She walked alone, among hushed whispers, softly singing to her baby.

When she couldn’t stand the gossip and ridicule from the town anymore, she went back to the mayor to beg for help. She took their baby, hoping he would see himself in its face. Unfortunately, she didn’t get that far. The door was slammed in her face by the servant before she could see him.

Devastated, the poor young girl walked along, crying and feeling alone. There was nobody left to help her. She walked to the bridge overlooking Little Sugar Creek (formerly Possum Creek). She stood there softly singing to her baby, when she figured out what to do. Closing her eyes, she plunged into the water below, her bundle tight in her arms.

Her body was found a few days later, still clutching a wad of blankets in her arms. But when they pulled back the cloth, there was no baby. Was there ever a baby? Nobody can say for sure. But visitors to the part of the creek where Magee Park is now located say that an ethereal woman walks along the bank, crooning a soft lullaby to a bundle in her arms.

Is there a ghost at the park? Sources say that the ghostly activity increases in June, so maybe next June, we’ll have to investigate…