Sandusky County Historic Jail

The underground dungeon beneath the Sandusky County Courthouse in Fremont, Ohio, was constructed in the early 1840s after local officials grew frustrated with repeated prisoner escapes from their above-ground jail, which had primitive dirt floors and wooden barriers. The solution was a subterranean chamber with solid limestone walls, ceilings, and floors designed to be escape-proof. Prisoners saw little daylight in the windowless space, with kerosene lamps or candles providing the only illumination.

The dungeon's first occupant was George Thompson, an Englishman born around 1819 who shot and killed Catherine Hamler on May 30, 1842, at the Exchange Hotel in Bellevue, Ohio. Catherine, an eighteen-year-old Pennsylvania native who worked at the hotel alongside Thompson, had repeatedly refused his marriage proposals. After his conviction, a death warrant was issued on July 9, 1844. Thompson had escaped from the less secure wooden jail several times, so he was confined to the new dungeon before the courthouse above it was even finished. He spent approximately a year in the underground cell on a diet of bread and water before being led back into daylight for his execution by hanging on July 12, 1844. According to accounts passed down through local history, the hanging was not clean, and Thompson struggled for an agonizing period before dying on the gallows that still remain in the building for visitors to see.

The dungeon operated for more than a decade before its conditions were deemed too harsh and it was closed. The second jail structure, a three-story gray sandstone building designed by architect J. C. Johnson in Queen Anne and Romanesque style, was erected in 1890 and 1891 at the corner of Croghan and Clover Streets at a cost of $40,000. President Rutherford B. Hayes, a Fremont resident who led a national organization advocating prison reform, influenced the new jail's design to include features ensuring humane treatment of inmates. The building served as an active jail for nearly a century. In 1997, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The dungeon remained sealed and abandoned until 2013, when the Sandusky County Convention and Visitors Bureau reopened it for public tours. Almost immediately, visitors and staff began reporting unexplained phenomena. Courthouse employees described hearing disembodied voices and footsteps echoing through the corridors. The building's motion alarm system began triggering regularly between two and three in the morning near the dungeon entrance, with the disturbance sometimes extending through the hallway and up the first-floor courthouse steps, though security cameras showed no one present.

Visitors on tours report feeling tugs on their clothing and hair from unseen hands. Paranormal investigators who have descended into the dungeon have emerged with unexplained scratches on their arms. A shadowy figure wearing a brimmed hat has been observed sitting on a first-floor courthouse bench, and one visitor reviewing a selfie taken during a tour discovered what appeared to be a man standing directly behind her, though she had been alone when the photo was taken. The courthouse fire alarm has triggered spontaneously when no one was nearby. Audio recordings made in the dungeon have captured what some interpret as desperate gasping sounds, which investigators attribute to Thompson.

The Ohio Researchers of Banded Spirits, known as ORBS, conducted paranormal investigations after courthouse staff reported these accounts. The team, which has appeared on multiple cable television programs, facilitated the launch of public paranormal tours alongside the standard historical tours. Today the jail offers several tour types including flashlight tours conducted with no other lighting and "Dungeon Descent" paranormal investigation tours at 622 Croghan Street.