Dark Harvest Productions

HARVESTER RIDE: Description TBD 1 mile ride through haunted woods
STAWMAN'S STALK: Description TBD Corn maze
BELL CITY WALK: Description TBD Haunted Walking trail

The history of Dark Harvest and the Bell City Ringer.

Many residents of Highland County Ohio, are familiar with the history and significance of the CS bell company. The Hillsboro-based company was famous worldwide for manufacturing bells. So much so Hillsboro was often known as Bell city. This is the reason for the annual celebration known as the festival of the bells. However, until recently, not all history was known. When the new owners of 6418 State Route 124 in Hillsboro Ohio started cleaning up the property to farm, they made a very unexpected discovery. What they found was the original CS bell foundry with a stone in the wall dated 1855. This predates all known history of the company. When they opened it up what they found inside was even more disturbing. They found old newspaper clippings and company records detailing the employment of one Elmer Dawes. Elmer was the first employee hired by the company and acted as the foundry manager. Early records indicate that Dawes was a model employee and very dedicated. It seems as the company started to grow Dawes became almost obsessed with his job. He worked unbelievably long hours and demanded perfection from his employees. He insisted on ringing every completed bell himself to ensure the tone was perfect. If a bell didn’t meet his standards, he would destroy it and make everyone start over. The employees started calling him “The Ringer” behind his back. He became so obsessed with the perfection of the bells, he barely allowed his employees to have anything to do with the bell making process. He often locked the foundry and wouldn’t let the employees in. He became so unmanageable that the company was forced to let him go. Dawes was devastated. He could not handle the fact that bells were still getting manufactured and sent out without his approval. He was caught in the foundry many times testing the bells. Even more times than that the employees would come in to find bells they had just made destroyed. He was warned for the last time by police to stay away from the foundry, or they would send him away for a very long time. His fiancé begged him to let it go, but he could not. Records indicate that Dawes broke

Into the foundry one last time on the morning of October 1, 1857 the day of his wedding. The workers that morning reported that the furnace was on when they arrived and they found shoes and a hat sitting beside it. They didn’t think much of it since nothing else seemed l to be tampered with, and they went about their work. It wasn’t until Dawes didn’t show up for his wedding that they realized what had happened.

Dawes being so devastated from his termination, had broken in and turned on the furnace. He then took his shoes and hat off and walked into the molten metal, forever becoming part of the bell that the employees cast that day. Company records indicate that the bell rang with the most perfect tone they had ever heard. They decided to keep the bell at the foundry in honor of the employee Dawes once was. In the years that followed this horrible event bells continue to be broken.

Bells could be heard, ringing from the foundry at all hours of the night when no one was supposed to be there. Employees started to go missing, and other swear the place was haunted. Then one fateful night employees were working late to complete an order and none would ever leave. When workers arrived the next day and discovered the scene, they could not believe the horror. Many wouldn’t talk about it, but there were reports of employees having hot metal poured on them, and other unmentionable means of torture. The foundry was immediately shut down and boarded up. The townfolk covered the incident up, and no one would speak of it. Although it was hard to deny the sound of one perfect Bell ringing in the night for years and years to follow. As you know, wickedness attracts wickedness and the Bell city ringer was not the only heinous being to escape from the foundry when that door was opened. All manner of beast and ghoul emerged from that dark place. The farm, which had already been cursed to be barren and infertile now thrived. But it thrived in the darkest manner possible. Some say, even the trees themselves are cursed. They say every living thing on that farm has a spirit of its own, but not everything on that farm that moves is living. The beings that walked or crawled out of that dark place now infest it. They have opened it up and invited you in. Will you accept this invite or stay away? And if you do accept it, do you think you can survive the Dark Harvest?