Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainAn 1871 hilltop burial ground above the Ohio River near Ironton and Coal Grove, best known for the ghost of ballerina Antoinette 'Teenie' Peters, said to dance near her vandalized mausoleum.
824 Lorain Street, Ironton, OH 45638
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public municipal cemetery; no admission fee. Visit during posted daylight hours and treat the grounds with respect.
Access
Limited Access
Hilly, landscaped cemetery grounds with paved drives and grass sections; uneven in places.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1871 · Founded 1871; one of the principal historic cemeteries of the Ironton / Coal Grove area · Burial place of Imperial Russian Ballet dancer Antoinette 'Teenie' Peters · Documented by the Lawrence County Historical Society and Briggs Lawrence County Public Library
Woodland Cemetery sits on a hillside above the Ohio River, serving the river towns of Ironton and Coal Grove in Lawrence County, Ohio. Founded in 1871 and sometimes called the 'City of the Dead,' it grew to roughly 50 acres and now holds more than 8,000 graves behind a landscaped, gated entrance on Lorain Street.
The cemetery's most famous resident is Antoinette 'Teenie' Peters. According to the Lawrence County Historical Society, Peters performed with the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Pavia Oranski Ballet in Chicago before marrying a local industrialist and settling in Ironton. She was injured in a car accident while visiting a nephew in East Chicago, Indiana, and died from her injuries days later; her body was returned to Ohio and entombed in a private mausoleum at Woodland. Her grave became a target for vandals: accounts describe her glass-topped coffin being broken, two fingers severed to steal her rings, and a jeweled brooch reportedly given to her by the Russian czar stolen, along with damage to the ceramic photograph mounted outside the crypt.
A second figure tied to the cemetery is Dr. Joseph Lowry, a prominent Ironton physician who died on May 23, 1933. According to the Briggs Lawrence County Public Library's documented biography, he was found by a neighbor the following evening in bed still in his nightclothes with a towel over his face. His death certificate listed apoplexy (stroke) as the cause, though suspicion of foul play by his heirs persisted in local retellings and was never definitively resolved.
The cemetery remains an active municipal burial ground. Its history and its associated ghost stories are preserved by the Lawrence County Historical Society, the Briggs Lawrence County Public Library, and regional folklore writers, making it one of the better-documented haunted cemeteries in southern Ohio.
Sources
Woodland Cemetery's signature legend belongs to Antoinette 'Teenie' Peters. After her death in a car crash and the desecration of her mausoleum by vandals, the story goes that visitors who linger after dark may glimpse her dancing near her tomb, a graceful figure said by some tellings to frighten away would-be vandals. The Lawrence County Historical Society and regional folklore writers record the tale while noting plainly that Peters died in an automobile accident, correcting the more lurid versions that circulated through anonymous ghost-story collections.
The cemetery's second resident apparition is Dr. Joseph Lowry, the Ironton physician who died in 1933. Local lore claims he can be seen walking the grounds, sometimes in the company of his mother, who is also buried at Woodland, and that his presence is felt at the former site of his home as well.
These stories are folklore rather than verified phenomena, but unlike many roadside legends they are anchored to real, documented people and a real cemetery, and they are preserved by the county historical society and public library rather than only by anonymous submissions.
Notable Entities
Stroll the 1871 grounds overlooking the Ohio River and locate the mausoleum of ballerina Antoinette 'Teenie' Peters and the Lowry family plots, both tied to the cemetery's best-known legends.
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