Elms Road

Wisconsin · United States · Execution site

The town butcher is said to have killed his family one by one in his own shop, and then hanged himself in the barn in the woods.

The legend of Elms Road at Delavan, Wisconsin concerns a man who lived on it and worked as the butcher for the town.

According to the story he lost his mind one night and killed his family, one at a time, in the butcher's shop. Later the same night he hanged himself in a barn in the woods.

No names, no date and no record accompany any of this, and no such case appears in anything we have been able to check. It should be read as folklore, and the shape of it, a tradesman who turns on his family and then on himself, is one of the oldest patterns in rural American storytelling.

What people report is at the site of the old butcher's shop: frantic screaming and loud laughter. Several accounts come from people who say they did not believe any of it until they went.

The barn in the woods is the second location, and the two are told together. Both are on private land in farming country, and neither is somewhere to go looking.

FAQ

Where is Elms Road located?

Elms Road is in Wisconsin, United States.