Jacob Wolfinger built the first log house in an area that is now known as Secor Metropark in 1834. Two of the Wolfinger children were the first white people to be born and die in Richfield Township. The children were buried on the Wolfinger farm, which was the beginning of today's cemetery. Wolfinger Cemetery is a small cemetery and is surrounded by woods on three sides. The graves of thirty-six Civil War Veterans can be found here.
Wolfinger Cemetery is located within Secor Metropark in Berkey Ohio, Lucas County. Secor Park was dedicated in 1953 and currently encompasses over six hundred acres of land including four hundred wooded acres. The park includes a visitor center and several hiking trails throughout the woods. Secor Park is located in Northwest Ohio about fifty miles south of Ann Arbor Michigan. From the I475/US23 Exit 13, go west on Central Avenue for six miles to the Secor Park entrance and turn left. Follow the signs in the park to Wolfinger Cemetery
Legend has it that along one of the three wooded edges of the cemetery there are the graves of two adults and their three children. All members of the family are said to have died within weeks of one another. The children have been seen playing in the cemetery near their graves. A girl of 10 or 12 in a blue dress with a white pinafore has been seen the most.
A Toledo based Paranormal Investigator posted an "orb" photo on the Internet that was taken at Wolfinger Cemetery and is said to have experienced paranormal activity as well. This photo along with the associated legend was enough reason for me to be interested in Wolfinger Cemetery.
In August of 2002 my wife and I went to Wolfinger Cemetery to get our impressions. We live four miles away in Sylvania, Ohio and go to Secor Park often but were unaware of the legends, which surround the cemetery until recently. This was not an investigation but merely a visit with no equipment or cameras to attempt to locate the five graves from the legend.
We were unable to locate the five graves of the family but my wife had the name "Rebeca" come to her as she was walking through the cemetery. Our dog "Lucy" would not approach a certain grave in the center of the cemetery. I tried multiple times to lure her in close but she would not go. After several minutes I returned to the grave and Lucy approached it without hesitation.
The next day I returned to the cemetery to continue my search for the family's grave. I located the graves of three children who died one week apart. I could not find the graves of the children's parents. The children's marker had no last name visible but their first names as well as birth and death dates could be clearly seen. The names were "Thomas" (8), "Rebeca" (10) and "Earnest" (6).
One week later my wife and I returned to the cemetery. As we walked up the center drive we noticed plastic flowers lying on the ground under the attached eight-inch deep vase of a gravestone near the back of the cemetery. My wife jokingly said, "Kids quit playing with the flowers". She returned the flowers to the vase and we walked to the children's headstone. We then noticed that a gravestone of a husband and wife near the children's headstone had the same red rose that we had picked up across the cemetery. It so happens that this husband and wife died about four months before the children in August of 1865.
My wife and I walked the entire cemetery and could not find any other flowers that were knocked over or had fallen out of their vases. There were many graves that had flowers around the husband and wife's grave so why would someone take a flower from fifty yards across the cemetery to place on a grave when there were many other flowers so much closer?
We decided to continue the cemetery investigation and document our results to determine if anything paranormal could be happening here.
Several days later I returned to the cemetery with my EMF meter in hand. I first walked the center road and noticed that the flowers were still in the vase of the gravestone at the back of the cemetery. I decided to walk the outer edges at the rear of the cemetery to find any evidence of a gravesite. When I returned to the center road the flowers on the left side of the headstone were once again on the ground. I thought that this was extremely unusual. Again I looked around the cemetery and could find no other flowers out of their vases or tipped over. There was little to no wind when the flowers left the eight-inch deep vase and no one else was in the cemetery at the time.
We returned two nights later and took four 35mm photos. Two of these photos showed something unusual. The first showed a small solid "orb" in the trees over some graves while the second picture appeared to show a mist in the trees that was in motion.
While running with my dog at Secor Park three days later I experienced a strange event. The air was full of electricity and I found myself looking over my shoulders often while running on a trail near the back of the cemetery. I heard running footsteps coming from behind us, which lasted for five or six seconds. I moved my dog to the side of the trail and waited for the runner to pass. No one was there.
Three days later I returned to Wolfinger to take digital photos of the cemetery for documentation purposes. I placed my EMF meter next to the children's grave and watched as it spiked up to 4 on several occasions. I took 3 digital photos at that time and 2 35mm photos several minutes later. One of the digital photos showed a transparent "orb" nearby in the trees.
We believe the cemetery has some paranormal energy present that appears to be centered near the three young children's grave. We will continue our investigation at a later date.
