OCTOBER FRIGHTS BLOG HOP - DAY 5

 

 

 So, we've reached Day 5, the penultimate post for the 5-day horror blog hop. Have you had nightmares yet? I hope so!

Today I want to talk about something different - scary but true stories.

I grew up (and live) in the haunted Hudson Valley region of New York, which is rife with all sorts of spooky legends - ghosts, UFOs, cryptids, haunted houses, demons, and more. I thought I'd give you a quick look at some of the stories I grew up with.

 But first, a reminder to check out A.F. Stewart's blog page, http://afstewartblog.blogspot.com/, where you can find all the links to the bloggers who are participating in this year's blog hop. There's a lot of great material on those pages, so please visit them! And don't forget to stop by
https://tinyurl.com/StoryOriginGiveaways, where from now until Oct. 31 you can get free horror reads!

Who doesn't like free?

++++++++++++

Local Legends of the Hudson Valley

 

Halloween has always held a special place in my heart, even before I ever thought about becoming a horror and science fiction writer. While there is never one single reason a person can trace to a love of all things spooky, without doubt one of the factors in my own personal horror-mania has to be that I grew up in one of the most haunted places in the country, a region where Halloween isn't just a holiday, but a part of life.

I'm talking about the lower Hudson Valley of New York.

Stretching from Manhattan to Albany County, there are probably more haunted places, creepy legends, and historical oddities per square mile than any other place you can imagine. Space prevents me from listing every legend and tale I grew up with, but below are some of the more popular ones, just to give you an idea of the dark aura of the region.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The most well-known tale of the region, school kids everywhere learn about Rip Van Winkle and The Headless Horseman, but for locals it's more than just a fable. Old timers still tell about meeting people involved in, or related to participants in, the actual story (there is fact behind the veil of legend). If you go to Sleepy Hollow, you can visit the graves of the main characters in the story. You can see the church where tales of the devil were told. And you can walk across the bridge where the Headless Horseman still to this day appears on foggy nights.

Bannerman's Island & Armory. Also known as Pollepel Island. A small island in the Hudson River that played a key role in several wars dating back the Revolutionary War. Rumored to be haunted all the way back to the 1600s, when the local Native Americans believed it to be populated by ghosts and goblins, it was purchased by famed arms dealer Francis Bannerman, who built an armory and weapons storage center there in 1908, in the form of a giant castle. In 1920, several tons of explosives detonated accidentally, destroying large portions of the building. A fire in 1969 rendered the whole castle unsafe. 

Spook Rock Road. A hilly road in Suffern, NY. There is one place where as you go down the hill, if you stop and put the car in neutral, you will roll backwards up the hill. The legend is that at that spot, a Revolutionary War soldier was murdered because of his illicit love affair with a Native American girl. The girl then committed suicide at the same place. Lots of towns have similar tales, but I can personally vouch for this one. It is a very weird thing to experience.

Doodletown. Settled in 1762, it was populated by descendents of French Huguenots and various English-speaking peoples. At its height, the isolated hamlet boasted 50 houses and two churches. By 1965, most of the inhabitants had either moved away or been forced out by eminent domain when the state bought the land as part of its parks system. Today intrepid hikers can still walk through the cemetery and, if they remain overnight, receive visits from ghosts.

Letchworth Village. Once a thriving mental institution, it is now a collection of abandoned buildings scattered across several hundred acres. Founded in 1911, its grand ideals quickly deteriorated into a history of overcrowding, lobotomy and shock therapy experimentation, polio vaccine testing, and physical abuse. It was the subject of a Geraldo Rivera expose in 1972. Today people can walk through the grounds, and many people illegally explore the buildings, where tales of ghosts abound. 

Clausland Mountain. In Orangeburg, NY, in the center of an old Army base, is a series of tunnels that join some of the old buildings. Supposedly, one of them leads to a portal into Hell.

Pine Bush. A small town in Orange County, it is the UFO capital of the world. Huge numbers of sightings occurred there in the 1980s and 1990s, including objects shaped like boomerangs, saucers, and wedges. Residents also reported strange lights in the woods, aliens walking on the streets, and loud noises. 

The Bloody Man. This tale dates back to the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, when local soldiers would report seeing a red, bloody man with no skin roaming the land after battles, searching for wounded and dying soldiers to feast off of.

The Devil's Hole. In Bear Mountain, NY, there is supposed to be a lake (some say it's a river inlet) where a whirlpool waits to suck unwary swimmers down to Hell.

Cemeteries. Historical cemeteries abound in the lower Hudson Valley. Because of its extensive involvement in the Revolutionary War and the first settlements of NY, more than a few famous figures can be found with a little research. As children, we frequently played in a cemetery where the graves dated back to the 1700s (today a group of houses sits atop that site). In West Nyack, a small cemetery even sits in the middle of a mall parking lot, because of the historical significance of the cemetery preventing its movement to a new location. 

That's just a small taste of how I live in an area of perpetual Halloween. The tales above – and so many others – were recounted in various ways each Halloween season; at school, at home, and among friends. We rode to those places on our bikes and took class trips to visit them. And, in turn, we've passed them on to our friends and children.

And now I get to pass them on to my readers, as I did with my novel Cemetery Club, which incorporates portions of the Letchworth Village history.