Roth: The Buffalo Bills' ghostly gridiron

No league championships since moving into a new stadium in 1973 located in Orchard Park, Erie County.

O.J. Simpson, their first Pro Football Hall of Famer, in jail for armed robbery after a widely known double murder trial.

An 0-4 record in Super Bowl games, the result of missed field goals, lost helmets, concussions and turnovers.

A playoff game lost on a trick-play. A playoff drought now the longest in major sports at 15 years.

More: Columns by Leo Roth

Now a team beset with injuries, controversy and a 3-4 record at the bye under new coach Rex Ryan who was supposed to fix this mess.

This Halloween weekend, I no longer am blaming the GM, coach and the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills' eternal state of woe. I’m blaming supernatural forces, thanks to reading a new book Cursed in New York: Stories of the Damned in the Empire State, by Rochester author Randi Minetor.

Minetor’s tomb, ‘er tome, is a fun read about lots of ghostly places and events, a cavalcade of curses and clairvoyance from Niagara Falls to Long Island. Sports fans will especially like the chapters spent on curses associated with the New York Rangers, Knicks and Belmont Park, where this year the Curse of Mamie O’Rourke ended with American Pharaoh’s triumph in the Triple Crown.

And of course, there are the Bills, who are in a netherworld of their own.

Minetor writes of a "Curse-Nado," a conglomeration of curses besetting the Bills that people have theorized about for years. President William McKinley’s assassination in 1901. Doug Flutie’s benching in 1999. The introduction of the Billy Buffalo mascot in 2000. The moving of training camp from Fredonia to Rochester that same year.

And I’ll add another, the dismantling of the Buffalo Jills, creating a paranormal of pompons.

But while all of these theories can be discussed with a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek over a favorite witch’s brew, there is another that is indisputable and has left me chirping, like the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz, “I do believe in spooks, I do, I do.’’

I’m talking about Rich Stadium, now Ralph Wilson Stadium, being built a Hail Mary pass from a pioneer family cemetery, and if that wasn’t creepy enough, possibly over an unmarked ancient Native American burial ground.

“One of the things for me is that a curse implies intent, that somebody wishes harm on somebody else,’’ says Minetor, who has written more than 20 books for Globe Pequot Press, mostly on the natural (birding, hiking, parks) not supernatural. “That’s what makes this particular one of the many curses — the Curse-Nado — surrounding the Bills so fascinating, this is the one that seems to have some substance.’’

Forget Peerless Price, we’re talking Vincent Price here. Cue the scary track.

When the Bills and Erie County selected a 113-acre tract of land off Abbott Road, an area of overgrown farmland and a few homes, the Sheldon Family Cemetery was discovered. A dozen marked graves revealed that the Sheldons, who settled in the area in 1805, began burying their dead in the plot near Gate 7 in the 1830s (an infant son, John, 3 weeks old was the first) right up through the 1940s.

It’s reputed that original stadium plans would’ve put the cemetery plot on the 50-yard line and architects wanted the bodies relocated. But thanks to efforts by Sheldon family descendants and community history buffs — with some assistance from then Bills owner Ralph Wilson — the cemetery was spared.

However, the new configuration turned the stadium's footprint, putting the open ends facing east-west instead of north-south, allowing for brutal winds to swoop in from Lake Erie. For better and sometimes worse, those winds have determined the outcome of many games, a message sent from beyond the grave.

According to a marker, the cemetery was restored by the Junior Yorkers and Orchard Park Historical Society. Today, it rests behind a fence, a small patch of green surrounded by asphalt, concrete and tailgaters. But there’s more.

The plaque detailing the Sheldon family history includes this last sentence: “An early Erie Indian village was also located on the site of the stadium.’’

That’s what grabbed the attention of journalist Aaron Lowinger.

In a 2012 story appearing in Buffalo Spree Magazine, Lowinger details how his research into the Sheldon burial plot led him to a long-forgotten atlas of aboriginal localities published in the New York State Museum Bulletin in 1920 by famed archaeologist Arthur C. Parker, who served as director of the Rochester Museum and Science Center from 1925 to 1945.

The exhaustive work describes sites across the state where Native American artifacts had been discovered to that point. Under Erie County, site 51, is the following narrative: “Village site, extensive, in East Hamburg (now Orchard Park) at the junction of Smoke’s Creek and a small brook. The site is on the George Ellis and Charles Diemer farm east of Abbott road. The occupation is identified by Professor Houghton (Buffalo archaeologist Frederick Houghton) as Wenro. A large cemetery was destroyed by contractors and many clay vessels were broken and thrown in excavation.’’

The Wenrohronon people (Wenro) were among a group of small tribes — along with the Erie and Neutrals — that fell to the powerful Iroquois during bloody battles in the 1600s. Citing Lowinger, Minetor writes that in his atlas, Parker describes the exact village and Indian burial site on which the stadium would be built, as the south branch of Smoke Creek runs to the east of Abbott Road and along the stadium boundaries.

Current Orchard Park historian Sue Kulp has doubts but adds “I can’t say 'yes' and I can’t say 'no.'’’ Verifying the location of the Ellis-Diemer farm of a century ago and the site 51 dig would help solve the mystery. It sure would make a good episode of Ghost Hunters. As for Parker, who was part Seneca, his credibility is sound; Minetor says he was one of the most respected authorities on Indian culture in western New York of his day.

“If he says there was a Wenro burial ground under that site, that’s pretty credible,’’ she says.

So let's assume this purported Wenro burial ground went undisturbed until European settlers arrived. Then came stadium contractors who removed 370,000 feet of shale to build the field 50 feet below ground level. If not this exact spot, well the stadium campus is 200 acres today and many areas have been bulldozed to add new buildings and parking lots.

“The construction of the stadium isn’t what disturbed the remains, but it was more adding insult to injury,’’ Minetor says.

And, folks, that is when the Bills’ troubles started. The advice for how to avoid the effects of the supernatural given by countless horror movies in the 20th and 21st century was ignored.

“Don’t go in the basement, don’t go in the attic, don’t go in the woods … and for the love of God, don’t build your home – or your stadium, for our purposes – on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground,’’ writes Minetor about what we all know to be true.

It’s expected that the Bills will someday build a new stadium in downtown Buffalo. At that point will the spirits that haunt the land east of Abbott and between Southwestern Boulevard and Big Tree Road finally rest?

“It’s hard to say,’’ Minetor says. “I think there is an additional step that needs to happen and that’s making some kind of gesture of respect to the site and to the people who came before. That might clean up their karma, to acknowledge the slight that was done there.’’

If I’m the Bills, I’d do it now. It sure couldn’t hurt. And on this Halloween weekend, I’m just hoping that 15 years from now we’re not speaking about a 30-year playoff drought, one that came to be known as the “Hex of Rex.’’

Meet Minetor

Rochester author Randi Minetor will be signing copies of Cursed in New York: Stories of the Damned in the Empire State ($16.95, Globe Pequot Press) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 21 at The Bird House, 3035 Monroe Ave. Go to rowman.com and minetor.com.

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