Ada Witch
The story of the Ada Witch isn't a story about a woman named Ada...and maybe it isn't even a story about a witch. But I'll leave that up to you to decide. The story begins where most good stories begin: with tragedy. An unnamed woman had been unfaithful to her husband. She would steal away in the middle of the night to meet her true love. Eventually, the husband got wise. One night, he follows his wife and discovers her infieldility. He kills his wife, and then both men fall upon each other and lose their lives in the fight. And that is where the nameless woman's story ends and the Ada Witch's story begins.
According to Nikole Bray, the founder of the West Michigan Ghost Hunter Society and author of the Paranormal Michigan books, there are nearly a hundred different versions of the story. The one you just read is the most simplistic and likely the most common. In fact, people can’t even seem to agree on if it happened in the late 19th century or early 20th century.
The Ada Witch now haunts Findlay Cemetery and has been scaring everyone from ghost hunters to teenagers for decades (if not a century). But how did she get to Findlay? Depending on who is telling the story, some say she is buried in the cemetery. Others say that she was killed near the cemetery and that's why she lingers so close to it. I would also like to note something else in the naming of the Ada Witch - she doesn’t haunt all of Ada, just the Findlay Cemetery. So why isn’t she the Findlay Witch? For example, Resurrection Mary isn’t named Clinton Mary. Anyway…
Sightings run the gambit, from Woman-in-White sightings not dissimilar to our beloved Resurrection Mary, to the echoes of the screams of that last, deadly fight forever carried into the wind.
But why is this nameless woman a witch? Probably because she was a woman who scared people. Even in the many stories about her, including the one I shared tonight, the woman is never anything but a wife and adultress. Perhaps she is called a witch in death for her actions or because she frightens people or because her actions frighten people…or some mix of all three.
If you go down your own rabbit hole of the Ada Witch, you might come across a name: Sarah McMillian. Sarah was a real person who is buried in Findlay Cemetery. Somehow, her name got swept up in the story. But, there is a major problem: she wasn't murdered. She died of typhoid fever.
While you might think you'll find the ghostly visage of the Ada Witch within the bounds of the cemetery, most of the sightings actually come from nearby roads. If you do search her out be careful, quiet, and calm and maybe stick to the roads instead of the cemetery itself.
Thanks to IG: Enggesicht for the blogstonishing suggestion!
The image depicts Findlay Cemetery, in Ada Township, Kent County, Michigan www.usgwarchives.net/mi/tsphoto/kent/findlay.htm