The Urban Legend of a Witch in Maryland

1696 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Irish culture in America

The Legend of Moll Dyer: A Witch in Maryland

The first time I heard this story was in Maryland. It was told by a woman in her thirties, who identified herself as being of Irish heritage, which made the story of Moll Dyer more close to her heart. She was also an anthropology major who has had contact with local folklorists in the past. This is where she first learned of the story of Moll Dyer, which she recounted to me as follows:

Moll Dyer was an Irish immigrant to Saint Mary’s County, where people began to think she was a witch. When all of the children of the town became sick, the people blamed her and tried to kill her. She ran away from them and they chased her to a large rock. She placed one hand on the rock and raised the other hand towards the sky [gestures with one hand lowered, flat, as if on the rock, and the other hand raised towards the sky], praying. She froze like that and you can still see her hand print on the rock. I’ve actually seen it and put my hand in the place. It’s pretty freaky since it really does fit a human hand. It’s at the courthouse in St. Mary’s County if you want to go see it.

Although most of the stories are relatively similar to this version, there are slight differences or additions. In one of the other versions collected, it is said that Moll Dyer lived in a remote cottage outside of Leonardtown in St. Mary’s County in the 1700s. This version stated that, while most of the townspeople knew nothing of her past, they believed Moll Dyer was from a wealthy family and came to this country to escape some mysterious event. This version also gave more details of the history of the townspeople’s interactions with Moll. According to this version, she was given the label of witch bec...

... middle of paper ...

...parainvestigator/Maryland/Maryland.html.

Maryland Ghost & Spirit Association. “Maryland Hauntings—St. Mary’s County.” Access date: 6 April 2005. 2000-2005. http://www.marylandghosts.com/locations/stmarys.php.

Maryland Women’s Heritage Trail. Access date: 6 April 2005. http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/NR/rdonlyres/3DB5F819-6E1C-4917-8F43-5251C2D49C52/2474/MD_Heritage_41_50.pdf>.

MDP. “Maryland, the old Supernatural Stomping Ground.” Access date: 6 Apr 2005. http://groups.msn.com/marylandtheoldsupernaturalstompingground/comingsoon.msnw

Shoemaker, Sandy. Tobaccor to Tomcats… St. Mary’s County since the Revolution. StreamLine Enterprises: Leonardtown MD. Circa 2002. http://access-somd.org/tobacco_to_tomcats/tobacco_to_tomcats.htm.

United States Work Projects Administration (Md.). Records microform. Reel #23, frame 034037. 1933-43.

Show More
Related

  • The Haunted Places in Wisconsin

    2052 Words  | 5 Pages

    Do you know what the closet haunted places to you are? The closet haunted places are in Weyauwega, Marsh Road. There are actually two haunted roads by the name of Marsh Road in Weyauwega (Haunted Places in Wisconsin 29). There is one where I live stretching from highway 54 to White Lake Road, which is the road I live on, and there is one near highway ten just off of Evanswood road which is a dead end (Haunted Places in Wisconsin 29). Both of these roads are unmarked, which means that they don’t have any street signs. The first Marsh Road I am going to talk about is the one off of Evanswood Road (Haunted Places in Wisconsin 29). Legend says that in the 1960s and 1970s there was a “Make-out Couch”, and on the night after prom there was a couple that was on the couch late that night and it is said that a man, in which they call the Goatman, killed them and left there remains still on the couch (Haunted Places in Wisconsin 29). Also another myth is that if you stop your car on the bridge of marsh road that your car will not start back up. Many people have said that they have seen the couple’s ghosts. Other paranormal activities include orbs found in pictures from studies that have been conducted on the road (Haunted Places in Wisconsin 29). Also many people say...

    Read More

  • Escaping Salem The Other Witch Hunt Of 1692 Summary

    1143 Words  | 3 Pages

    Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 by Richard Godbeer. This book was published in 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Richard Godbeer examines the witch trials in the seventeenth century. When a young girl Katherine Branch of Stamford, Connecticut is stricken with unexplainable convulsions, her master and mistress begin to think it is caused by something supernatural. Godbeer follows the incident without any bias and looks into how the accusations and trials are handled by the townspeople and the people in charge of handling the trails. Godbeer’s purpose of writing this book is to prove that Salem was not the norm. Godbeer’s approach of only one using one case, slightly weakens his effectiveness that Salem was not the norm.

    Read More

  • Mary Musgrove

    817 Words  | 2 Pages

    As a member of the Creek tribe and the Wind Clan, Musgrove spent the first few years of her life learning her tribe language of Muskogee, as well as English, and the ways of the deerskin trade. Being of mixed heritage, she was acquainted with the cultures of both the Native Americans and the colonial people. When Musgrove was about ten years old, she was sent to live with a white family in Ponpon, South Carolina, just outside of Charles Towne. There, she was baptized, given the name Mary, and attended an English school. As a result, she became accustomed to both colonial and tribal life.

    Read More

  • Analysis of a possible connection between race, gender, and age during the Salem Witch Trials of 1682-1693.

    1299 Words  | 3 Pages

    Presuppositions: Many assumptions have been made about Tituba. Mainly, being that when people (specifically Americans) hear the term “slave,” the term becomes immediately recognized as an African American. However, Tituba was an Indian Woman, from an Arawak village in South America.2

    Read More

  • Witchcraft in North America between 17th and 21st century

    1674 Words  | 4 Pages

    Woodward, Walter “New England’s other Witch-hunt: The Hartford Witch-hunt of the 1660s and Changing Patterns in Witchcraft Prosecution” OAH Magazine of History, 2003

    Read More

  • The Bell Witch Case Study

    1422 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Bell Witch is the most common name for a well-known haunting that occurred in Red River, Tennessee, which is now known as Adams. The Witch is also known as “Old Kate” or “Kate Batts’s ghost” due to the belief that the Bell family was targeted after Batts laid a curse upon his family. She is described as a woman that “possessed no greater height than most average women but certainly greater girth. The flesh of her upper arms were as thick as a young man’s thighs. She also possessed enormous quantities of bright red hair and freckles.” Batts was a hardworking person that took on the many responsibilities of her family farm after her husband was involved in an accident which crushed his legs. It was believed by a small group in the

    Read More

  • Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692, by Bernard Rosenthal

    835 Words  | 2 Pages

    When one evokes The Salem Witch Trials of 1692, the image that comes to most peoples minds are that of witches with pointed hats riding broomsticks. This is not helped by the current town of Salem, Massachusetts, which profits from the hundreds of thousands of tourists a year by mythologizing the trials and those who were participants. While there have been countless books, papers, essays, and dissertations done on this subject, there never seems to be a shortage in curiosity from historians on these events. Thus, we have Bernard Rosenthal's book, Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692, another entry in the historiographical landscape of the Salem Witch Trials. This book, however, is different from most that precede it in that it does not focus on one single aspect, character, or event; rather Rosenthal tells the story of Salem in 1692 as a narrative, piecing together information principally from primary documents, while commenting on others ideas and assessments. By doing so, the audience sees that there is much more to the individual stories within the trials, and chips away at the mythology that has pervaded the subject since its happening. Instead of a typical thesis, Rosenthal writes the book as he sees the events fold out through the primary documents, so the book becomes more of an account of what happened according to primary sources in 1692 rather than a retelling under a new light.

    Read More

  • The History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials

    2587 Words  | 6 Pages

    Hysteria took over the town and caused them to believe that their neighbors were practicing witchcraft. If there was a wind storm and a fence was knocked down, people believed that their neighbors used witchcraft to do it. Everyone from ordinary people to the governor’s wife was accused of witchcraft. Even a pregnant woman and the most perfect puritan woman were accused. No one in the small town was safe.

    Read More

  • Rebecca Nurse: The Unjust Witchcraft Accusation

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rebecca Nurse was the embodiment of a kind, pious, and gentle citizen during the 17th century in Salem, Massachusetts. Having spent her entire life a devout Purist, Rebecca was hardly a typical candidate to be accused of such a heinous act such as witchcraft in 1692. And yet, she was violently taken from this world before her time had come, accused of afflicting girls through the medium of witchcraft, causing pain, suffering, and fits to such innocent younglings. How could someone who seemed so innocent be sentenced to the worst, cruelest punishment of all, death? A consensus on her innocence has been undisputed by historians and scholars since her travesty of a hanging.

    Read More

  • Salem Witch Trials: The Salem Witch Trial

    946 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the modern day it’s hard to believe there’s even still ‘’witch hunts’’ as you can say where a group of people are stereotyped as something without them doing the actual stereotypical thing. We live in a world where blacks are getting shot for no reason when they were just walking down the street unarmed and not harming anyone. Blacks and Latinos are always looked down upon in any shape or form. They could be driving a nice car they get pulled over for suspicion of a stolen car, they can get pulled over in an old broken car and they will get pulled over for suspicion of ‘’criminal activity’’. But if it’s a white person the cops will NOT bat a single eye at them despite being in the same situations as the black. And you know what the problem

    Read More

  • Research Paper On Mary 1

    948 Words  | 2 Pages

    12 Nov 2013. <http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/queenmary.ht,>. "Ghost Myth: Bloody Mary." seeksghosts.blogspot. N.p., 08 Jun 2011.

    Read More

  • Racism, Anti-Semitism, and the Southern Courts

    1650 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tidwell, James N. "Folklore in the News." Western Folklore 14 (1955): 213-14. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.

    Read More

  • The Devil in the Shape of a woman

    737 Words  | 2 Pages

    To completely understand the history of New England witchcraft you have to understand the role of colonial women. The author of this book, Carol Karlsen, used a lot of Secondary and primary sources to support her thesis. She uses first hand accounts of witch trials. Which I found very interesting to read. Such as her use of Cotton Mathers personal writings. She also used court records as one of her sources to writing this book. These records showed the detailed court proceedings, depositions, and court rulings.

    Read More

  • The History of Witches and Witchcraft

    1338 Words  | 3 Pages

    What do you think when someone calls someone a witch? What comes to mind? Do you think of the movie, ‘Hocus Pocus’ or do you think of the black pointed hats and the long black, slit ended dresses? What about witchcraft? Does the term “Devil worshiper” ever cross your mind? Do you think of potions and spells? For many, many generations, we have underestimated what the true meaning of a witch and what witchcraft really is. What is the history that hides behind it? Witches and witchcraft have been in our history since the ancient times. There is a little bit more than the ghost stories told on Halloween, the movies shown on TV and dressing up on Halloween.

    Read More

  • The Devil's Disease

    566 Words  | 2 Pages

    Schanzer, Rosalyn. Witches!: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2011. Print.

    Read More

More about The Urban Legend of a Witch in Maryland

Open Document