Spirits, of a sort, haunted Kenyon crypt in the 1920s

GAMBIER — The low, mournful clanking sounds emanating from the Lewis family crypt in the Kenyon College Cemetery in Gambier gave it a reputation for being haunted in the 1920s.

And those who knew otherwise were glad if the reputation caused people to steer clear of the prominent structure in the center of the graveyard, for they wished to keep a low profile.

For those clanks were not spectral chains being rattled by restless spirits.

Well, there may have been spirits involved. In bottles.

The crypt had been pressed into service by enterprising students during Prohibition as a distillery. With alcohol outlawed, the period saw alcohol production spring up just about everywhere, and a rarely-visited crypt in a small college cemetery was a choice spot, it seems.

I say seems because actual documentation of the bootleg liquor is lacking, of course. What typically happened in situations like this is that the actual production of alcohol was a widely-known secret.

The powers-that-be would simply look the other way and pretend not to notice it was going on, as long as things didn’t get too out of hand.

After all, if some students were literally brewing alcohol in the crypt, that means they had to set up a still, which would have been run by burning wood or coal to boil the sour mash, from which alcohol would be distilled.

It wouldn’t have been too hard to figure out what was going on if there was smoke pouring out of one of the windows of the only crypt in the cemetery!

But during Prohibition, such arrangements were far from rare, particularly if the bootleggers were smart enough to supply some of the powers-that-be with free liquor. I know from my own family history that my great grandfather, Willie Snipes, successfully ran a still in northeastern Kentucky during the height of Prohibition.

His moonshine was so popular, the entranceway to the field where he kept his still was worn a foot deep, so clearly revenuers could have raided him at any time; it was an open secret.

The key part that made the Lewis crypt so ideal was a bit of historical misfortune. The crypt is the final resting place of John Newton Lewis, his wife, and two of their children. The Lewis family originated in New Jersey, where John’s father, Freeman, was born in 1780.

Freeman spent a busy life as a surveyor and musician. He and his wife Rebecca had ten children in Pennsylvania, three of whom died young.

After Rebecca herself died at the young age of 44, Freeman took the surviving children, including John, west to Mount Vernon, Ohio, where Freeman worked as a surveyor and church organist.

He wrote a hymn entitled “Redeemer of Israel” that is still sung today, and his grave can be found in Mound View Cemetery.

John married Mary Beth Runyon, but they weren’t as prolific in creating children as his father had been. John and Mary Beth had only three children, one of which died at birth before being named.

Another was named Edwin Nevin Lewis, and there’s a space for him as well in the crypt, though without dates. Furthermore, his name is nonexistent in local records. This suggests he also died early.

The one child who survived into adulthood was daughter Anna, yet she passed away in her mid-thirties, and was buried in the crypt as well.

John received an honorary degree from Kenyon College, which suggests that there was some kind of connection there which motivated him to set up a crypt in the cemetery. As he worked as an engineer, he may have become involved in the creation of new structures at the college.

John himself took up residence in the crypt in 1891, and his wife followed him just a decade later.

It’s a bit creepy to think that the distillery inside the crypt opened up a mere decade or so after Mary Beth’s passing, but it would appear that the site was chosen because there were no living relatives likely to show up and inspect the site, as Mary Beth was the last of that branch of the family.

I first heard about the bootleg operation from Kenyon College writer-in-residence P.F. “Fred” Kluge, whom I crossed paths with at the cemetery in 2010, when I was showing it to my friend Kimberly Orsborn.

Fred regaled us with stories of the place, including the Lewis crypt distillery.

According to Fred, the bootleggers served cups of alcohol through the side window of the crypt to those who knew the secret password. One online source says that bottles from the bootlegging days can still be seen inside the crypt, though I haven’t been out that way lately to take a look.

After all, with neither ghost nor a good stiff drink to entice me, I haven’t had a good reason to go since I took these photos in 2010, which I recently found in my archives.