Grace Thorndike and Witch Road in Rosendale, Wisconsin

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated September 20, 2026 · How we verify

Witch Road in Rosendale, Wisconsin, is not a landmark so much as a habit: a rural stretch that teenagers, ghost hunters, and curious drivers have called by that name for long enough that the nickname has outlasted most of the people who could explain it. On a county map it appears as Callan Road, running through the Town of Metomen in Fond du Lac County. On a clear afternoon it is farmland, fence line, and trees. After dark, according to the people who keep returning, it is something else.

What follows separates the two threads that make up the road’s reputation: the sparse biographical details attached to the woman at the center of the legend, and the experiences visitors say they have had along the road itself. The first is thin. The second is entirely anecdotal. Neither has ever been verified as evidence of a haunting, and this article does not claim it has been.

Where Witch Road Actually Is

• Common name: Witch Road
• Official name: Callan Road
• Location: Metomen, Wisconsin 54971, near Rosendale
• Access: A public rural road, drivable, with private property on both sides
• Known for: Reported sightings of a small girl, unexplained lights, and voices with no source

Grace Thorndike, the Recluse at the Heart of the Legend

Every version of the Witch Road story begins with the same name. Grace Thorndike was born in 1894 and lived a secluded life along the road. Local accounts describe her as a reclusive woman reputed to practice witchcraft, and that reputation, whatever its basis, appears to have followed her for decades. She died in 1971.

It is worth being blunt about what that record contains and what it does not. A birth year, a death year, a rural address, and a neighborhood reputation are not evidence of witchcraft. They are evidence that a woman lived alone in a farming community that found her unusual. Isolated women in small rural townships have been described that way across American folklore for two centuries, and the label has rarely required proof. What is verifiable here is that Grace Thorndike existed, lived along this road, and that her name became permanently attached to it after her death.

Ila May and the Name That Leaves the Record

The second figure in the story is Grace’s niece, Ila May, born in 1915. Accounts of the road state that after a brief period living in the area, her name drops out of public records in the 1920s and does not reappear.

That absence is the engine of the legend. A child who vanishes from paperwork is not the same thing as a child who vanishes, and there are ordinary explanations for a name disappearing from a county’s documents in that era: a family moving away, a change of surname, a record never filed or later lost. No death, no crime, and no disappearance has ever been documented on Callan Road. But the gap in the record is real, and folklore fills gaps faster than archives close them. The small girl people say they see in the trees is almost always identified as Ila May, and the identification is an assumption rather than a finding.

What Drivers and Walkers Say Happens on Callan Road

The reports gathered from visitors over the years fall into a handful of consistent categories. All of them are anecdotal, and none has been independently confirmed.

• A child in the treeline. The most frequently repeated sighting is of a young girl, said to peer from behind trees or move quickly through the dense woods bordering the road. Witnesses generally connect her to Ila May.
• Cold, unnaturally dark stretches. Some travelers describe specific sections of the road that feel colder and darker than the rest, with the change noticeable enough that people slow down or turn back.
• The sound of running water. Visitors report hearing water moving nearby with no visible stream or culvert to account for it.
• Lights among the trees. Intermittent lights are described flickering through the woods, appearing and vanishing without an identifiable source.
• Voices without speakers. Whispering and fragments of conversation are among the more common complaints from people who have stopped and stood in the dark.

A rural road at night is a difficult place to rule anything out, and a difficult place to rule anything in. Farm equipment, distant yard lights, headlights on a neighboring county road, deer moving in the brush, and drainage running under a field can all produce exactly the effects listed above. That does not mean the witnesses are lying. It means the road offers very little that can be tested, which is part of why the story has survived intact for so long.

Why the Story Holds On

Witch Road persists for the same reason a lot of Midwestern back roads do. The documentary record is just detailed enough to feel real, two names and four dates, and just sparse enough to leave room for everything else. Skeptics and believers arrive at the same stretch of gravel and asphalt and come away with entirely different accounts of the same hour. The road does not settle the argument, and probably never will.

Driving Witch Road Without Becoming the Problem

Callan Road is a public road and can legally be driven. Everything on either side of it is not. This is working farmland and private residences, and the people who live along it did not choose to live on a ghost story. Do not park in driveways, cross fences, walk into fields or woods, or approach houses. Do not leave anything behind, and do not go looking for a property once associated with Grace Thorndike; that land belongs to someone now.

Practical notes for anyone going: it is an unlit rural road with no shoulder in places, no sidewalks, and farm traffic that does not expect pedestrians. Wisconsin winters make the surface unreliable, and fog is common over the surrounding fields in spring and fall. If you visit at night, stay in your vehicle, keep moving, and do not block the roadway. Local law enforcement is familiar with the road’s reputation and with the trespassing and littering that come with it.

Ghost hunting can be genuinely dangerous, and a dark county road with no visibility is one of the more ordinary ways people get hurt chasing a legend. Treat the residents of Metomen better than the story treats them.

See Witch Road for Yourself

Sources

• Yahoo.com
• Newstimes.com
• The Witches of Oz Blu-ray
• Sean Astin and Billy Boyd in 'The Witches of Oz'
• Alienbee.net
• Wikipedia: Dorothy and the Witches of Oz

Ghost Tours Nearby

Haunted History Trolley Tour in Wisconsin Dells★ 3.7 (147)from $25

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