Editor’s note: This story sounds like a worn-out urban legend. The problem is that this happened to the grandfather of the guy who told me the story.

Is Bluffton haunted?

No. Or, maybe. Well, yes, but, there’s no such thing.

It’s late October. For a moment, let’s say it is haunted. Perhaps this short, unexplained story that took place in Bluffton in the 1890s will assist in your decision-making.

An elderly Bluffton gentlemen told this to me in 1978. The incident took place on North Main Street, just across the bridge over Riley Creek.

Here goes, as close to word-for-word as I can recall:

This is going to be a really weird story. My grandfather worked at Siddall’s sawmill. You know, where Dick Habegger’s filling station is. The sawmill was really big. It had many employees.

Anyway, my grandfather told me that once a worker there lost three fingers in the large saw.

They took him to the doctor and fixed him up.

About three weeks later, the man kept saying that if felt like there was a splinter in his finger. The problem was that the splinter pain was in one of the missing fingers.

Then, someone finally “got in there” and cleaned up the saw. There in the sawdust were the three fingers. One had a large splinter.

The man who lost the fingers took the fingers and threw them in Riley Creek.

The pain went away.

You see, the splinter got out of the finger once it was in the creek.

Moral to this story: Don’t go looking for missing fingers in Riley Creek, especially in late October. You may find them.