Mudhouse Mansion

Mudhouse Mansion once stood in Fairfield County, Ohio, just south of Lancaster. Its construction date remains uncertain, with estimates ranging from the 1840s to around 1900. However, its Second Empire architectural style suggests it was most likely built in the 1870s. The mansion was torn down on September 21, 2015.

The land was originally purchased by Christian and Eleanor Rugh in either 1839 or 1852—the exact year is unclear—from Abraham Kagy and Henry Byler. In 1919, the property passed to Henry and Martha Hartman. After Henry’s death in 1930, their daughter Lulu Hartman inherited the estate. She later married Oren Mast, and the Mast family continues to own the land. Locally, the mansion became known as the "Hartman Place," although it is also referred to as the "Rugh-Mast House" in Heritage of Architecture and Arts, Fairfield County, Ohio by Ruth W. Drinkle.

Over time, Mudhouse Mansion developed a reputation for being haunted. One popular tale claims that after the Civil War, a government official kept slaves locked inside the house overnight, until one escaped and murdered the entire family—though this is unlikely, as Ohio was a free state. Other stories tell of a family who either committed mass suicide or were murdered in the house. Still more legends link the mansion to the origin of the Bloody Mary myth, claiming the ghost of a woman who killed her children—or whose husband did—still haunts the site.

Despite its eerie reputation, the mansion was eventually demolished in 2015 by its owners, the Mast family.