2008 Woodie Awards
The Loomis Gang And The Ghost Of Wash Loomis
Brandy Bones
Issue date: 10/29/04 Section: Arts & Features
- Page 1 of 4 next >
Violent death will come
to anyone not of
Loomis blood whoever has this farm.
These were the ominous last words uttered by Wash Loomis as he lay dying with his hair and skin peeling from his skull, eyes rolled back in his head and the fractures to his skull bleeding profusely. Wash Loomis was murdered Halloween Night, 1865 on the Loomis Farm in Watersville, New York. Loomis was the leader of the Loomis Gang, a family who had succeeded in terrorizing Central New York with their looting, murder, rape and treachery for over two decades. Some believe the family's horrific legacy lives on in Wash Loomis, his ghost emerging to inflict violent death on unlucky innocents who hear or see his figure.
Anna Collins, wife of the younger and equally evil brother of Wash, Grove Loomis, told how new owners of the Loomis farm were never able to raise crops on its soil where once the Loomis family had sowed abundant amounts of hops, grain, corn and potatoes. Mrs. Collins herself once caught sight of the Ghost of Wash Loomis and this experience lead to a violent death. "I am not a superstitious woman," she claimed, "and Grove's stories of the Loomis curse had often made me laugh." But lo and behold, two days after sighting Wash's ghost, Motty Mason, owner of the Loomis farmstead, committed suicide. In the 1940s, the Loomis farm had been passed on to two of Motty's nephews, Harold and Ed. While Harold was crossing Route 20 one day, he was struck and killed by a passing car.
Still today, descendants and neighbors claim there is truth to the Loomis curse. "Personally, I don't believe in ghosts," Judy Schenk of the Barge forewarned me. Then she began to tell the tale of her brush with the Loomis ghost. "There is a story that if you hear the thundering hooves of Wash Loomis' horse on Halloween night, someone is going to die in three days' time.
"On this particular Halloween - oh, about a decade ago - we were out camping, not far from where the Loomis farm once stood. There was a full moon out, about midnight; the stars were out, and I heard it. I heard the sound of the thundering hooves. I looked out in the direction where I had heard the sound, but there was nothing in that field. Personally, I don't believe it," she reiterated once again. Although no one died, Judy never did figure out where that noise had come from.
to anyone not of
Loomis blood whoever has this farm.
These were the ominous last words uttered by Wash Loomis as he lay dying with his hair and skin peeling from his skull, eyes rolled back in his head and the fractures to his skull bleeding profusely. Wash Loomis was murdered Halloween Night, 1865 on the Loomis Farm in Watersville, New York. Loomis was the leader of the Loomis Gang, a family who had succeeded in terrorizing Central New York with their looting, murder, rape and treachery for over two decades. Some believe the family's horrific legacy lives on in Wash Loomis, his ghost emerging to inflict violent death on unlucky innocents who hear or see his figure.
Anna Collins, wife of the younger and equally evil brother of Wash, Grove Loomis, told how new owners of the Loomis farm were never able to raise crops on its soil where once the Loomis family had sowed abundant amounts of hops, grain, corn and potatoes. Mrs. Collins herself once caught sight of the Ghost of Wash Loomis and this experience lead to a violent death. "I am not a superstitious woman," she claimed, "and Grove's stories of the Loomis curse had often made me laugh." But lo and behold, two days after sighting Wash's ghost, Motty Mason, owner of the Loomis farmstead, committed suicide. In the 1940s, the Loomis farm had been passed on to two of Motty's nephews, Harold and Ed. While Harold was crossing Route 20 one day, he was struck and killed by a passing car.
Still today, descendants and neighbors claim there is truth to the Loomis curse. "Personally, I don't believe in ghosts," Judy Schenk of the Barge forewarned me. Then she began to tell the tale of her brush with the Loomis ghost. "There is a story that if you hear the thundering hooves of Wash Loomis' horse on Halloween night, someone is going to die in three days' time.
"On this particular Halloween - oh, about a decade ago - we were out camping, not far from where the Loomis farm once stood. There was a full moon out, about midnight; the stars were out, and I heard it. I heard the sound of the thundering hooves. I looked out in the direction where I had heard the sound, but there was nothing in that field. Personally, I don't believe it," she reiterated once again. Although no one died, Judy never did figure out where that noise had come from.