{"id":306,"slug":"german-protestant-cemetery-new-bremen-ohio","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["New Bremen's German Protestant Cemetery — the Lock Two Cemetery of early records — was established in 1865–66 north of the village, after the town council banned further burials inside the corporation limits on sanitation grounds and attached fines of twenty-five to fifty dollars. Its first known burials date to December 1865, and it remains the burying ground of German Township's farm families, at Lock Two Road and New Bremen–New Knoxville Road.","The haunting claim attaches not to the graves but to the cemetery's former groundskeeper house. The Ohio Exploration Society's Auglaize County survey records what former residents reported: lights turning off, doors swinging open, a doorbell ringing on its own, occasional cigar smoke, and footsteps on the stairway."]},{"heading":"The boundary the notes draw","paragraphs":["The research notes keep the file disciplined: the claim concerns a residence associated with the cemetery, and no public access to that residence is established — the experiences are former occupants' testimony, filed as reported experience.","What is documented is a township cemetery born of a public-health ordinance, and beside it the ordinary machinery of its keeping — a house whose stairs, in the tellings of the people who lived there, never quite emptied."]}],"name":"German Protestant Cemetery","aliases":[],"type":"CEMETERY","type_label":"Cemetery","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["cemeteries","hauntings"],"desc":"Cemetery associated with documented cultural history.","full_desc":"German Protestant Cemetery is a cemetery in New Bremen, Ohio. Cemetery associated with documented cultural history. The archive files it under haunting reports. The dossier holds 1 reported claim — all telling, no verified spine yet, and the file says so plainly. Access details are unverified — research before visiting. The dossier keeps the place and the story in the same record — which is what the archive is for.","address":null,"city":"New Bremen","county":"Auglaize","state":"Ohio","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":40.435516,"lon":-84.377756,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Claim concerns a residence associated with the cemetery. No public access to the residence is established.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":40.6,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":240,"type":"HAUNTING","description":"Former groundskeeper-house residents report footsteps, cigar odor and unexplained door or light activity. The reports concentrate at Former groundskeeper residence. Cemeteries keep their stories in the stones; German Protestant Cemetery in New Bremen, Ohio has its version filed among them. It's a reported experience — real to the people who had it, unresolved for everyone else. The report is preserved in sources like 'Auglaize County Hauntings and Legends'. It's the kind of claim that outlives debunkings — too many witnesses, too few explanations.","evidence":"REPORTED_EXPERIENCE","evidence_label":"Reported experience","entity":null,"where":"Former groundskeeper residence","first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.7,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Auglaize County Hauntings and Legends","url":"https://www.ohioexploration.com/paranormal/hauntings/auglaizecounty/","publisher":"Ohio Exploration Society","type":"PARANORMAL_ORGANIZATION","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Auglaize County Hauntings and Legends","url":"https://www.ohioexploration.com/paranormal/hauntings/auglaizecounty/","publisher":"Ohio Exploration Society","type":"PARANORMAL_ORGANIZATION","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":0,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}