Adams County's Oldest Brick Home and Underground Railroad Stop
Ohio Route 41 (Zane's Trace), Peebles, OH 45660
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Private residence; not open to the public. The historical marker on Route 41 is freely viewable from the public right-of-way.
Access
Limited Access
Roadside
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1801 · National Register of Historic Places (1979) · National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom · Adams County's Oldest Brick Home · Morgan's Raid
Peter Wickerham, a Revolutionary War veteran from Pennsylvania, settled in Adams County in 1797 and constructed his brick home along Zane's Trace - the early federal road authorized by Congress in 1796 to connect Wheeling, Virginia, with Limestone, Kentucky. Construction of the house took place in 1800-1801. Wickerham received his tavern license in 1801 and operated the property as an inn and overnight stagecoach stop, the oldest brick structure in the county.
The Wickerham Inn served as a documented stop on the Underground Railroad in the decades preceding the Civil War, sheltering enslaved people moving north toward Lake Erie. On July 15, 1863, Confederate cavalry under General John Hunt Morgan slept at the inn during Morgan's Raid through southern Ohio. The tavern operation closed around 1850, and the building has remained a private residence since.
In 1922, during a renovation that included the installation of central heating, construction workers discovered a headless skeleton buried beneath the limestone basement floor. The skeleton was intact apart from the skull. The basement floor was excavated in full but the skull was never located. The Wickerham Inn was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 5, 1979, and was formally recognized in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. It is still owned by Wickerham descendants and is not open for tours.
Sources
Local oral history identifies an unnamed nineteenth-century traveler - typically described as a stagecoach driver - who is said to have been murdered while staying at the Wickerham Inn, his head removed and his body sealed beneath the basement's limestone floor. The 1922 discovery of an intact, headless skeleton during the installation of central heating is documented in Adams County records and gave the folklore its physical anchor. The skull was never recovered.
Reported phenomena attached to the inn include the sound of footsteps ascending the staircase when the family is alone in the house, piano music playing in an empty room, and a residual presence in the bedroom where the bloodstains were originally observed. The Wickerham descendants who own the property have not publicly endorsed these accounts, and because the home is a private residence, no recent paranormal investigation of the interior is publicly documented.
Notable Entities
View the brick exterior of Wickerham Inn from Ohio Route 41 between Peebles and Locust Grove. The Ohio Historical Society marker on the right-of-way summarizes the inn's role as a stagecoach stop and Underground Railroad station. The home itself is a private residence and is not open to the public.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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