The Ada Witch and Sarah McMillan

Findlay Cemetery in Ada, near Grand Rapids, is the home of one of west Michigan’s best-known ghost legends. In the usual telling, a jealous husband followed his unfaithful wife to a meeting with her lover in the 19th century, killed her and fought the other man until both died. Her spirit, the “Ada Witch” or “Lady in White,” was said to be heard and seen around the cemetery and nearby roads. A Fox 17 report quotes Candice Smith, founder of Tours Around Michigan, who says the story has more than a hundred versions, some set in the 1700s and most in the 1800s.

The legend entered print in Gary Eberle’s Haunted Houses of Grand Rapids (1982) and gained new life after The Blair Witch Project. No historical record supports the murder. Smith calls it legend, not history.

The problem came when searchers tied the legend to a real grave. According to Mysterious Michigan, researcher Nicole Bray later found that the damaged headstone visitors blamed on the witch belonged to Sarah McMillan, who died of typhoid fever in 1870 at the age of 29. She was not a murder victim. Her stone was chipped and broken by people who came to the grave, and a monument company is reported to have donated a new stone once the facts were known.

The story matters as a case of a legend damaging a real family’s memorial. Findlay Cemetery is an active burial ground in a residential neighbourhood, and visiting after dark is trespassing; people interested in the legend should read the history and leave the grave alone.

Reports of unseen fights, a sensation of being watched and a woman in white or blue on nearby roads; none have been investigated beyond ghost-hunter claims.

Findlay Cemetery and the roads around it in Ada, Michigan.

The Ada Witch is a rite of passage for west Michigan teenagers and appears in books on Grand Rapids ghosts and on local television.