I LOVE MY (HAUNTED) TOWN
I live in the
Hudson Valley region of New York State. And every year around this time we gear
up for Halloween. More so than many other areas. Why? Only because it’s one of
the most haunted regions in the country, thank you!
But like so many
places in our country—and the world—there’s local legends, and then there are
“local legends.”
When most people
think of the area along the Hudson River, the first thing that comes to mind is
Sleepy Hollow and the legend of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. We all
know it: poor Ichabod nearly gets decapitated by the vengeful spirit of a
Hessian soldier. You can visit Sleepy Hollow during October (if you feel like
fighting huge crowds) and tour the cemetery and old church where The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow takes place. You can visit at other times, too (I’d recommend
that), and the tour will be much longer and fill in all sorts of details that
you won’t find on Google or Wikipedia.
But to those of us who live locally, Ichabod (and his fellow story-mate, Rip Van Winkle) are just the tip of the iceberg.
Those mountains
where Rip hears the ‘thunder’ of the gods bowling? For centuries prior the local
natives heard it too, and attributed it to goblins. Those same goblins are said
to haunt Pollepel Island, which sits in the Hudson River a little north of
Sleepy Hollow, right across from Dunderberg Mountain (Dunderberg actually means
thunder mountain in old Dutch), which was where poor Rip supposedly took his
nap, according to the tales told to Washington Irving. Both areas were shunned
by the locals long before the Europeans arrived.
Ghosts and
goblins not enough? We’ve got more! Throughout the Catskill and Adirondack
mountains there are legends of a Bigfoot-type beast that roams the forests from
above Albany all the way down to the Tappan Zee Bridge. Go to any small
community along the river and it won’t take you long to find someone who claims
to have seen it.
Then there’s the
Bloody Man. During the Revolutionary War, and even before that during
skirmishes between the natives and the Europeans, soldiers reported seeing the
Bloody Man after battles, a red-skinned (some say his skin had been stripped
off) man who went from body to body, eating pieces of the dead and killing the
wounded.
Or how about the
Clarkesville Witch? A woman who back in colonial days was condemned as a witch
because she knew how to heal with herbs and she dressed oddly and was
unsociable. Hers was the last witch trial in New York State (and she was found
innocent!).
Then there are
aliens – the Hudson Valley is the UFO capital of the East Coast; maybe the
entire country outside of Nevada. Entire books have been written about it.
Want more? We’ve
got haunted roads, haunted houses, haunted churches, haunted mental health
hospitals, murder houses, bleeding plants, mysterious panther-sized black cats,
and ghost ships sailing the river.
Consider this: a
few years ago I did a Halloween presentation for kids at the local library.
Read a scary story and then did a Q&A about local ghost legends. Every
single kid in the audience had a tale to tell of either a friend or relative
who’d seen a ghost or lived in a haunted house.
So, as much as Ichabod Crane and his dark of night ride are stuff legends get made from, around here he’s just another story to tell!
And far from the scariest.
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Stay tuned for tomorrow's creepy entry and be sure to check out everyone else on the blog hop!
As always, be sure to check out A.F. Stewart's October Frights blog page, https://afstewart.ca/october-frights-blog-hop-participants/, for the links to all the different bloggers and the latest about the blog hop and all things horror. While there, be sure to visit the Book Showcase Page (https://afstewart.ca/october-frights-book-fair/) where all the participants have made their terrifying books available for purchase (most are on sale, including my novel CARNIVAL OF FEAR, which is only 99cents for Kindle!). And don't forget about the free book giveaway page: https://storyoriginapp.com/to/oyHMogF.
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