The Ghost of Little Ottie

In the late 1890s, a group of children left school to gather firewood for the schoolhouse. When they returned, one of their party, four year old, Ottie, was not with them. He remained missing for five months, until his body was found at the top of Bluff Mountain, seven miles away, with his cap still on his head. This is the extent of available information about Little Ottie's demise. We wondered, how did he die? Did animals get to his body? How did he get so far from the school house?

Then, we ended up at Punchbowl Mountain Shelter, which Ottie reportedly haunts. It was set next to a picturesque pond in a little clearing, a few miles from Bluff Mountain. The mosquitos were swarming, so M built a fire and we prepared dinner. It seemed nice enough, until dark fell.

Shortly after sunset, the frogs around the pond began their cheeping. The noise was so deafening, we found it difficult to talk...then our ears began to ring. Usually, we read a chapter from a book before going to bed, but being unable to hear each other speak, we just went straight to bed. About one AM, I woke up to hear a different type of frog noise, this time resembling a fax modem. They finally stopped around two, at least until I got up to go to the bathroom and made the mistake of turning my headlamp on. I must have woken a couple of 'em up, though, because they sounded the alarm and the whole lot of them started cheeping again. I finally drifted off to sleep, but woke up suddenly to the sound of silence, broken by a noise that sounded like a small hatchet hitting a log. "Little Ottie!," I thought, and tried to wake up M, before he came any closer to the shelter. M has an incredible ability to sleep through all kinds of cacophony, including supernatural events, and wasn't having it. A few minutes later, though, he let out a child-like giggle, which had me convinced that Ottie was now IN the shelter, possessing my dearly beloved. I lay paralyzed with fear until just before dawn...twenty minutes later M woke up, refreshed and excited because it was the day that my Aunt Mary was picking us up. He cooked double breakfast and spent an hour searching for newts around the pond, while I groggily packed up my things and cursed those who find it amusing to put ghost stories in the trail guides.