The earliest known reference to the island is a 1770 journal entry by George Washington who was surveying the area at the time. In 1897, the Buckeye and Eureka Pipeline Company bought the island and turned it into an amusement park. In 1907, a flood washed away much of the park. The Buckley family bought the island in 1911 and it remained in their family until it was sold to the Fish and Wildlife Service for $400,000 in 1998.

Today, Buckley Island is a wildlife refuge only accessible by boat. Some visitors have reported feelings of sickness and fatigue... clearly the island's troubled spirits are preying on their immune systems.

Buckley Island, situated on the Ohio River between Marietta and Williamstown, West Virginia, doesn't have a happy history. It started in 1782 when a flatboat carrying settlers became disoriented in a thick fog and wrecked on its eastern shore.

As the travelers prepared to spend the night, a group of Native Americans raided the encampment, killing two men and carrying the rest of the passengers off to fates unknown. After the settlement of Marietta was established, a Pestilence House was built on the island, and it became the final destination for many a victim of infectious disease, along with an unlucky few who just happened to get a fever at the wrong time.

To add to its grim reputation, between the years 1875 and 1896, the island became a haven for debauchery and all things illegal under the ownership of a gentleman named Colombia Bland. Mostly this involved gambling, cockfighting, drunkenness, etc. To improve the island's reputation, it was transformed into an amusement park in 1897.

Less than a year after opening, tragedy would strike when a pleasure boat by the name of WM Duffy capsized while transporting thrill seekers to the park. Miraculously, only 3 people were killed. Nine years later, a flood destroyed the park, and the island was purchased by the Buckley family, who lived there for nearly 100 years before recently selling the land to the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

Many visitors have reported being overcome with strange feelings while hiking there, and they say that if you walk down to the banks of the river at night, you can hear the eerie sounds of days past coming from the now uninhabited island.