From Fairlee to Lyndonville: Six Strange Tales
By Joseph A. Citro
Fairlee
The Flirtatious Flapper
Vermont’s scenic Lake Morey Inn has its share of phantom guests. One of the most colorful is a flirtatious flapper who has been hanging around since the 1920s, when she passed away after overdosing at a New Year’s party. She had come there seeking a husband and apparently she’s still looking. Those who have seen her—usually attractive young men momentarily alone in one of the hallways—will suddenly become aware someone is standing beside them. They’ll look to meet the wide eyes of a beautiful woman who’ll then coyly vanish.
Lyndonville
Beyond the Vail
Lyndon State College—now the Lyndon campus of Northern Vermont University—is located on the former Theodore N. Vail estate. Though Mr. Vail was the first president of the AT&T, it is his wife Emma who seems to have mastered communication—from beyond the grave. Most of her ghostly activities are in the theater, which stands on the site where she hanged herself.
When a visiting comedian made jokes about her, his water glass fell off the table and rolled to the edge of the stage where it righted itself. A visiting magician had trouble with his equipment: each time he set down his prop balls they’d spin away from him. A tightrope performer suffered the first fall of her career—she claimed to have been pushed. Sometimes an inexplicable “extra” appears during school plays. Regardless of the production, the “extra” is a woman, dressed in 1900s fashion.
Ryegate
Show Him the Door
Mark Massie recalls a ghostly experience from his early adolescence. He and his brother Matt were playing near the family place in Ryegate. While exploring, they found a hill with a wooden door in its side. This wood-plank door looked ancient. So did its rough iron bolts, oversized hinges, and huge rusty padlock.
The boys ran to tell their parents. Their mother stopped to see the door on her way to St. Johnsbury. She was puzzled; she’d lived there all her life and had never seen it before. All three agreed to explore the interior when they got back from their errand. But when they returned just a few hours later, the door was gone.
St. Johnsbury
Dog Lover
St. Johnsbury Academy’s Brantview House was originally a private residence. Supposedly, it’s haunted by a ghost who likes dogs. A young woman employed as housemother was reading one night in the double parlor. Her Afghan hound snoozed at her feet. Suddenly the door opened.
Her dog bristled and snarled at something the young woman could not see. As the animal cowered against her, she saw its fur being ruffled and smoothed as if by an invisible hand. The dog relaxed and seemed to watch something cross the parlor toward the main hall. After about twenty minutes the presence returned, shut the hall door, ruffled the dog’s fur again, exited through the front parlor, and politely closed the door.
Thetford
What Are You Doing Here?
The octagonal Lightgate Learning Center off Houghton Hill is rumored to be built on Native American land and is said to be cursed. Strange things happen there, though few seem attributable to malediction: people practice alternative healing or study intuitive science and spiritual growth. “Max” the Crystal Skull puts in occasional guest appearances.
But something far more baffling appeared to Prof. Leonard Gibson; perhaps it was a visitor from another realm. While spending the night he was awakened by an aggressive tugging on his bedcovers. An opaque, long-haired, apparently female apparition that appeared to be edged by light confronted him and seemed to demand, “What are you doing here? What are you doing here?” Shaken by the startling vision, Dr. Gibson may well have asked it the same question.
Waits River
The Photo Phantom
There are many ghost stories about the old Pike Hill Copper Mine. Miners who died there don’t seem to go away. And those who died elsewhere seem to come back.
A Peacham family has proof of these spectral visitors. On a weekend outing they visited the abandoned mine where the wife’s father had worked for many years. Her husband took a picture of her standing in front of a large rock. The surprise came when the film was developed. There, big as life, as if standing within the rock, was the woman’s father. No question, he was with her in the photograph, though he had been dead for many years.
Joseph A. Citro is a Vermont author, folklorist, and longtime collector of New England’s strangest stories, from ghostly happenings to local legends and unexplained curiosities. Known to many as Vermont’s “Bard of the Bizarre,” he has spent decades preserving the tales that linger along back roads, old houses, covered bridges, and quiet hillsides. In Passing Strange, Citro shares folklore with a curious eye, a storyteller’s warmth, and just enough mystery to make you look twice on the ride home.