Springs and Ponds
By Joseph A. Citro
THE BRUNSWICK MINERAL SPRINGS
It is one of the few Vermont locations to be featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not, was called "The Eighth Wonder of the World." Less hyperbolic Vermonters simply call it Brunswick Mineral Springs.
What’s so “wonderous” about them, you ask?
First, they are a geological anomaly comprised of six individual springs, side by side on a knoll, forming a semi-circle of about fifteen feet. Though nearly as close together as spigots on a soda fountain, the mineral content of each is said to be completely different from that of its neighbor. Moving left to right, they are: Iron, Calcium, Magnesium, White Sulfur, Bromide and -- if you are brave enough -- Arsenic.
And while these waters supposedly possess miraculous healing powers when blended in long-lost alchemic concoctions, they are also, reputedly, cursed.
The story goes that long before they came to Ripley's attention, Native Americans shared their extraordinary healing powers.
The first recorded cure happened in 1784 when the Natives used the "Medicine Waters" to heal a soldier's wounded arm. As European settlers populated the area, free sharing became free enterprise. Businessmen wanted to sell what nature had given away. When the local tribe objected, fighting broke out. Two Abenaki were killed. The mother of one, a sorceress, promised that any use of the waters –
for profit – would never succeed.
Her enigmatic declaration proved prophetic, and that's where the curse comes in.
For a while the magic waters remained free for the taking as their health-giving reputation grew. Boarding houses opened to provide travelers with convenient access. Then, in the mid-1800s, with the arrival of railroads, trips to the springs became almost effortless.
Spring-side accommodations changed from rustic to regal. One nearly-successful hotel owner was D.C. Rowell, who built "The Brunswick Spring House." But Dr. Rowell made one fatal mistake: he opened a bottling plant. And for the first time the waters were for sale. Almost immediately –
as if in response to some preternatural command – Dr. Rowell's hotel burned to the ground.
The determined doctor rebuilt. Then, around 1910, John C. Hutchins bought the place and planned to turn what he considered “his springs” into a gold mine. But on September 19, 1929, another collision with the supernatural occurred: fire destroyed the place!
Mr. Hutchins dismissed it as a freak accident. He replaced the ruins with a grander hotel four-and-a-half stories high, containing one hundred rooms.
However, on May 15, 1930 – just one month before it was to open – the night watchman spotted smoke billowing from a storage area. Soon flames raged through the rooms like a horde of angry demons. By midday Mr. Hutchins's hotel was nothing but twisted pipes and smoldering timbers.
But – believe it or not – two fires in two years didn't discourage him. This time he built a new, even grander, place. All he had forgotten was the shaman's curse, that "Any use of the waters for profit would never prosper."
On April 23, 1931, John C. Hutchins's third hotel burned to the ground. He never tried again. And in the century that has followed, neither has anyone else.
When I most recently visited the springs, I was doing research for my book Cursed in New England – Stories of Damned Yankees. I poked around cautiously, exploring the grounds a bit. The foundation of the old hotel is still there. Concrete walkways and iron railings direct you to the springs, which still flow, spreading their colorful mineral trail downhill toward the Connecticut River.
At long last the land has returned to Abenaki
supervision, so I reckon there'll be no more grand hotels or preternatural fires. But there is still magic in the air... and in the waters. I spoke with an elderly man –
well into his eighties – who told me he has been drinking the waters for forty years. He said they long ago cured his crippling arthritis and keep him spry enough to mow his three-acre lawn by hand.
And his medicine is free for the taking. However, I decided to pass, remembering that one spring was arsenic.
Perforated Pond
Around noon on January 10, 1977 – smack dab in the middle of winter – farmer Bill McCarthy looked out his window and saw something strange: a big hole in the ice of his pond.
A month earlier he might have thought nothing of it, but now everything around Wakefield, New Hampshire was frozen up solid. The pond ice was a good 18 inches thick. It was, he said, strong enough to drive a tank over.
Upon inspecting the mysterious hole close-up, he found it was perfectly round and about three feet in diameter. Its position was close enough to the center of the pond to suggest that whatever caused it had been aimed.
What – other than an ice fisherman with a three-foot-wide auger – could make such a hole?
Understandably curious, Mr. McCarthy found a long stick and began poking around with it. He says he definitely struck something submerged in three feet of pond water. As he peered below the murky surface, he “saw what appeared to be a square black object.”
Not knowing what else to do, the puzzled farmer went inside and phoned the town police. That was a big mistake; this one innocent phone call touched off a national furor.
First, police showed up with a bunch of Civil Defense workers in tow. Geiger counters began clicking up a storm. The radiation was so high officials ordered everyone to stay clear of the pond. They also instructed the McCarthys not to tell anyone what had happened.
But, sure enough, word got out. Soon an army of photographers, TV crews, and journalists descended on the place. By the end of the afternoon, state police, the National Guard, the Attorney General, and even the Pentagon were in on the act. Police tried to cordon off the area, but throngs of curiosity seekers just ducked under the ropes.
Every airfield within one hundred miles was checked. No military or civilian craft had dropped anything over New Hampshire. Experts ruled out meteors, natural thawing, hot springs, satellite debris, and oversized ice fishermen.
By nightfall, after a lot of dashing around, head-nodding, note-scratching, and secretive buzzing, everyone but the guards gave up for the night.
Next morning the underwater mystery plunged a few fathoms deeper. New readings showed the radioactivity in and around the pond had vanished.
And so, apparently, had the black box Mr. McCarthy said he had seen. However, certain eyewitnesses maintained that National Guardsmen had removed something from the pond, and hauled it away in the back of a truck.
State officials countered by saying they had instructed a chemist to take samples of water and soil, which he’d carried away in a black box. But no one admitted taking anything that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
In the days to come, amid the de-escalating confusion, Mr. McCarthy noticed another oddity: the hole never seemed to refreeze. Even after a windy sub-zero night, only a slush would form in the opening.
So, there you have it. After all is said and done, we can be certain of only one fact: something made that hole.
Could it have originated beneath the water, projecting up and out like an underwater cruise missile? Or should we believe something crashed down through the ice, then reversed direction to exit through the same hole?
It is sad to think that today, half a century after the fact, we still don’t know. All we can say for sure is that whatever deep-sixed in Mr. McCarthy’s pond made a big splash, but only in the papers.
Or at least that’s the story…
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.