Are there Ghosts along Mill Creek?

You betcha!

This story has been around forever! It is the story of an old hermit originally from Maine. He was a trapper and his territory and traplines were set in the part of Mill Creek around Coon Rock. During his era trapping was a good source of income, and very competitive.

The story goes that trappers from the Helena Area wanted this area of Mill Creek for their own. The old hermit was said to have had a lot of luck on this part of the creek. The Helena boys decided to invade his territory and did so by roughing up the old boy. Unfortunately they went to far and the hermit died. To cover up their crime they tied rocks to the hermits body and dropped him in the creek by the Coon Rock Road bridge.

They then stole his hides and traps. But, apparently from then on, those boys from Helena and anyone else who tried to trap in this area had bad luck. Most of which was due to the traps being sprung before anything was caught. The hermit apparently got the last laugh and is seen walking the creek springing traps on foggy nights.

I have to say, because I live next to this area of Mill Creek, and we hired a trapper to trap a few of the beaver that were actually coming up to our house, that the story is still true. The trapper had more sprung traps than beaver and finally quit trapping the area! However, I have never seen the "old hermit of Mill Creek" for myself.