Tombstones in the Trees: Hiking Haskell Run in Cuyahoga Valley

Hiking the Haskell Run Trail in Cuyahoga Valley National Park is a short but surprisingly history-packed adventure through one of CVNP’s quieter corners. Beginning near Happy Days Lodge, the trail winds past the historic Mater Dolorosa Cemetery, follows peaceful Haskell Run through a wooded ravine, and connects with trails leading toward The Ledges. Along the way, hikers encounter stories of Civil War tragedy, early Peninsula settlers, local folklore and the Civilian Conservation Corps, making this easy loop much more than just a walk in the woods.

Trail Info

Length 0.8 miles

Elevation gain 85 feet

Route Loop

Permit required No

Dogs allowed On leash

Trailhead elevation 929'

Water None filterable

Don't miss the historic cemetery

Hiking Haskell Run

The hike begins at the Happy Days Lodge Parking Area, a large lot that serves as both a trailhead and an alternative starting point for several nearby hikes in Cuyahoga Valley National Park, including The Ledges and Pine Grove. From the parking area, the trail passes through a tunnel beneath Route 303 and emerges near Happy Days Lodge.

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Rather than heading directly toward the lodge, the route veers slightly left and almost immediately passes through Mater Dolorosa Cemetery, also known as Cassidy Cemetery. This tiny 19th-century burial ground contains only about 25 graves, but several of them tell fascinating—and sometimes tragic—stories about the families who once lived in this part of the Cuyahoga Valley.

Perhaps the most compelling is that of Thomas C. Coady, who served in Company C of the 115th Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. Coady was captured by Confederate forces and held as a prisoner of war. After being released in 1865, he boarded the steamboat Sultana for the journey home. On April 27, 1865, the vessel's boilers exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killing roughly 1,800 people, most of them recently released Union prisoners of war. The disaster is generally regarded as the deadliest maritime disaster in U.S. history.

There is an interesting wrinkle to Coady's connection to Mater Dolorosa. According to a 2017 local history account written by a descendant of Patrick and Margaret Cassidy, Coady's body was never recovered from the Sultana. The marker here therefore serves as a memorial rather than his actual grave. His parents, Richard and Margaret Coady, are buried in the cemetery, with Thomas commemorated on their stone.

The cemetery was associated with the area's Irish Catholic community and later served Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church, with most burials occurring between 1864 and 1899. One of its most prominent monuments belongs to Patrick and Margaret Cassidy. Patrick was an Irish immigrant and prosperous local farmer who owned roughly 300 acres. He and Margaret died only weeks apart in 1885 and are buried beneath the cemetery's largest monument. At the time of his death, Patrick's farm was valued at $30,000—a considerable fortune for the era. Family tradition holds that Patrick and his brother John arrived in the area during the 1830s and that members of the Cassidy family initially found work around the Ohio & Erie Canal, an intriguing connection considering the important role Irish immigrants played in building the canal.

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Another grave worth finding belongs to Thomas McAnn, a young boy who died in 1877. Sources differ on his exact age, placing him somewhere between roughly 2½ and 5 years old, but the small lamb atop his grave tells its own story. Lamb sculptures were commonly placed on children's gravestones during the 19th century as symbols of innocence, making this one of the cemetery's more poignant details.

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Then there is the grave of Michael Raleigh, who died during the 1870s. His weathered tombstone eventually became tangled up in the infamous "Helltown" legends that have surrounded this part of CVNP for decades. Some visitors claim they can make out the image of a human face in the stone, helping fuel stories of ghostly figures and supposed satanic activity around the cemetery. There is no credible historical evidence behind those supernatural tales. Mater Dolorosa was simply a small Catholic cemetery serving the area's largely Irish Catholic population, although the folklore has given it an unusual second life.

Beyond the cemetery, the trail leaves the gravestones behind and dips into a wooded ravine, where it begins following Haskell Run, a small tributary of the Cuyahoga River.

Evidence strongly suggests the stream—and eventually the trail—was named for George Haskell, a mid-19th-century landowner in Boston Township. The Haskells were active members of the Peninsula community during its formative years. Around 1840, the family operated a store on Main Street, at what is now 1607 Main Street, and the building's upper floor occasionally served as a meeting place for an early religious society. In an era before Peninsula had all of the purpose-built churches and civic buildings it would later acquire, commercial buildings often doubled as community gathering places.

The Haskell family's influence extended well beyond its village store. They also owned substantial property east of the Cuyahoga River and operated a successful sawmill for more than three decades, processing timber harvested from the surrounding forests. Oak, hickory, chestnut, walnut and maple were among the trees growing across their land, making lumber an important part of the family's business and tying the Haskell name closely to the landscape hikers pass through today.

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The trail remains relatively flat as it winds beneath a dense forest canopy, with Haskell Run nearby. Along the way, it intersects with a connector leading toward The Ledges, making this a useful alternative starting point when the main Ledges parking area fills on busy weekends. Hikers looking for a longer outing can also use these connections to incorporate the Pine Grove Trail.

As you walk, you'll encunter numbered wooden posts scattered along the trail. They are remnants of an old self-guided interpretive trail once used by the park. Visitors could carry a booklet keyed to the numbered stations, turning the short hike into a lesson about the natural and cultural landscape surrounding Haskell Run. The booklet has disappeared from regular use, but many of its numbered posts remain as subtle reminders of an earlier era of park interpretation.

Eventually, the trail leaves the bottom of the ravine and climbs a short but moderately steep hill. At the top, the woods suddenly give way to a broad grassy field, with Happy Days Lodge sitting nearby. The lodge is more than just another park building—it is one of the best surviving pieces of Civilian Conservation Corps history in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Its story begins decades before CVNP existed. In 1929, the estate of Cleveland businessman Hayward Kendall donated roughly 430 acres surrounding the Ritchie Ledges to the State of Ohio with the stipulation that the land remain permanently dedicated to park purposes. The property became Virginia Kendall Park, named in honor of Kendall's mother. Beginning in 1933, the Akron Metropolitan Park District, today's Summit Metro Parks, managed the property for the state.

That same year, during the depths of the Great Depression, park director Harold S. Wagner secured a Civilian Conservation Corps camp for Virginia Kendall Park. On December 10, 1933, CCC Company 576 arrived during a snowstorm and established a camp near the site of today's Happy Days Lodge. Many of the young men came from Cleveland, Akron and western Pennsylvania.

Over the next several years, those workers dramatically transformed Virginia Kendall Park. They constructed trails and roads, built the Ledges, Octagon and Kendall Lake shelters, created Kendall Lake and planted trees across worn-out farmland. Much of the landscape hikers now think of as the Virginia Kendall section of CVNP still bears their fingerprints.

In the summer of 1938, CCC workers began transforming their former camp area into a recreational camp for children. The resulting 11-room Happy Days Camp opened in June 1940, constructed largely from locally quarried Berea Sandstone and wormy American chestnut in the rustic architectural style associated with many Depression-era park buildings.

The chestnut inside the lodge is especially noteworthy. American chestnut had once been one of the dominant trees of eastern forests, but by the time Happy Days was constructed, chestnut blight was killing the trees by the millions. Rather than allow the dead timber to go to waste, CCC workers incorporated it into the building. Insect holes running through the salvaged lumber produced the distinctive appearance known as "wormy chestnut." Happy Days Lodge is now considered one of the world's largest structures built from the material.

In other words, much of the wood visible inside Happy Days today is essentially a preserved piece of an eastern forest that largely disappeared more than a century ago.

Even the lodge's cheerful name carries a connection to the Depression and New Deal. "Happy Days Are Here Again" became closely associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt following his 1932 presidential campaign. The connection is particularly fitting because the Civilian Conservation Corps itself was one of Roosevelt's signature New Deal programs, providing employment for young men while completing conservation and public-works projects across the country.

Virginia Kendall Park eventually became part of the growing national park landscape in the Cuyahoga Valley. In 1978, the property was transferred to the National Park Service and incorporated into Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area, which had been established four years earlier.

The National Park Service subsequently repurposed Happy Days as a visitor center and program space, and generations of longtime park visitors remember it as the Happy Days Visitor Center. That chapter ended on January 1, 2008, when the building transitioned into Happy Days Lodge, a special-events facility operated by the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Today, Happy Days Lodge remains an active part of the park. Its 4,000-square-foot Great Hall, screened porch and surrounding grounds host weddings, receptions, concerts, educational programs, meetings, retreats and other events. The building is also protected as part of the Virginia Kendall State Park Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

From Happy Days Lodge, the trail makes its final short journey back toward Route 303, passes beneath the highway once more and returns to the Happy Days parking area. It's a relatively short hike, but between a forgotten cemetery, the remnants of an early Peninsula family, an old interpretive trail and one of CVNP's finest surviving CCC structures, the Haskell Run Trail packs an unusual amount of history into such a short, wooded loop.