The Ghostly Twins of Albino Road

Was there a place in your hometown where teenagers went to get scared? I grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and the Countess's Grave in the Rocks Village neighborhood was out local scary spot. It was the grave of an actual European countess, and it was surrounded by an iron cage, so there must have been something spooky going on, right?

I suspect there are dozens and dozens of these places all across New England. Some are well-known, but others are a little more obscure. I just learned about one this summer, and it is very close to where I grew up.

Here's how I learned about it. My high school reunion took place this summer. I wasn't able to attend, but I did manage to connect online with my classmate Jack, whom I haven't heard from in decades. While we were chatting he asked if I had heard of Albino Road. I said I hadn't, and he gave me the paranormal scoop. Here's what I learned from Jack and from a few sites online...

In the town of North Andover there is an abandoned road haunted by the ghosts of albino twin boys. It's located at the intersection of Barker and Bradford Street right near the border with Haverhill.

Many years ago in the late 1600s a married couple built their home on this piece of land. Soon afterwards the woman gave birth to healthy twin boys. However, the couple's joy turned to concern when they saw that their newborns were both albinos. The townspeople of Andover (of which North Andover was then a part) were superstitious and fearful of anyone who was unusual. The couple decided to raise their sons in secrecy and never let them leave the house.

Years went by, and by the time 1692 rolled around the boys had grown into healthy teenagers. Unfortunately one day a neighbor came to their house unannounced and looked into the windows. He saw the pale boys and immediately went to the town elders.

As you might know, the Salem witch trials were terrorizing Massachusetts in 1692, and many people from Andover had been accused of witchcraft. Concerned about possible witchery, the town elders took the boys away from their parents and debated what to do. Were these unusual-looking twins somehow related to the demonic forces trying to destroy the colony?

The elders devised a test to resolve the question. They took the boys to a nearby lake, tied rocks to their feet, and threw them in. The elders believed that if they drowned it would prove they were demonic in nature. The boys sank to the bottom of the lake and died. Having their worst fears concerned, the citizens marched from the lake and burned down the boys' home with their parents inside.

It's said the ghosts of the albino boys (and possibly their parents) now haunt the abandoned road where their house once stood. If you go there late at night you might see the ghostly boys, or perhaps just their eyes, shining red in the darkness. They are not friendly ghosts and don't take kindly to trespassers...

Teenagers in North Andover and other nearby towns visit Albino Road at night and try to see the ghosts. I am kind of a scaredy-cat, so Tony and I visited during the day. We didn't see any ghosts, but I certainly can understand why people might find this stretch of road creepy in the dark. I am always more afraid of deer ticks than ghosts, so if you do wander down Albino Road use a lot of insect repellent. And watch out for poison ivy too!

I don't know how long this legend has been told. Jack seems to have heard it when we were in high school back in the 1980s, and it may be even older than that. I also don't know anyone who has sen the ghosts, but there are some interesting things about this legend.

First of all, many people in Andover actually were accused of witchcraft during the Salem trials. In fact, more people from Andover were accused than people from Salem! So there's a little bit of historical truth behind the legend.

The idea that the town elders drowned the albino twins seems to be a garbled version of the water tests that witches in England were subject to. Also known as ducking, this process involved throwing an accused witch into a pond or lake. People believed that water would reject that which was unnatural or evil. If the accused witch floated, it was taken as a sign that the water rejected them and they were guilty. If you sank you were innocent. Of course, you also ran the risk of drowning if you sank, but at least you weren't a witch. The Albino Road legend seems to get this process backwards, and I'm not sure if the water test was ever used during the Salem trials.

I also am not aware that people with albinism were ever considered sinister in the Colonial era. Beliefs about albinos and witchcraft are unfortunately widespread in parts of Africa, and persecution of people with albinism is common in some countries on that continent, but I'm not aware of that happening in Colonial New England.

 
I also find it interesting that the boys aren't really supernatural monsters when alive, but then they actually become supernatural monsters after death. There is a lesson about tolerance behind this legend but maybe that lesson gets a little garbled. After all, it turns out those poor albino boys really are something to be afraid of, but just in ghostly form.

Lastly, this is a good legend for teenagers, because it is about teens whose parents never let them leave the house and who are misunderstood by everyone around them. It's never easy being a teenager, particularly not when there's a witch hunt going on.

PS - I will be speaking at the Rowley (Massachusetts) Public Library on Saturday, October 3 at 1:00 pm. My topic: North Shore Witchcraft: Legends, Stories and Practical Tips. I hope you can attend!

The Pigman On TV: "Half Human, Half Hog, 100% Hideous"

Here's a little history about one of my favorite monsters, the Pigman of Northfield, Vermont. 

Way back in 1999, University Press of New England printed Green Mountains, Dark Tales by Vermont folklorist Joseph Citro. Towards the back of the book was a story told to Citro by Jeff Hatch, a resident of Northfield. The story was about a horrible humanoid monster that lurked in the woods outside town: the Pigman.

As his name implies, the Pigman has a humanoid body and the head of a pig. He is most often seen in a wooded area called the Devil's Washbowl, where he likes to menace teenagers at night. Jeff Hatch thought he was a missing a farm boy gone feral, or perhaps the "consummation of blasphemous backwoods bestiality." Joseph Citro estimated that hundreds of people in Northfield were familiar with the Pigman story.

That number was destined to grow. In 2005 Citro's book Weird New England was published by Sterling Publishing Company. Hard cover and filled with color illustrations, Weird New England was more widely distributed than Green Mountains, Dark Tales and could be found in bookstores across New England. The Pigman legend spread.

Soon, the Pigman appeared on the Web, often accompanied by the illustration from Weird New England or Citro's later book, The Vermont Monster Guide (2009). I've posted about the Pigman three times:

1. In 2011, the basic, original Pigman story. In 1971, teenagers drinking beer in the woods see something horrible - is it a missing farm boy gone feral? But if it is, why does he have a pig's head?

2. In 2013, I posted an updated Pigman story that was circulating on the web. According to this story, the Pigman was really a missing teenager named Sam Harris. Sam had gone out to cause trouble on Picket Night, which was the local name for the night before Halloween. He was never seen again, but something returned to his parents' house three years later, leaving madness and insanity in its wake...

3. In 2014, I found another Pigman account that was circulating on the Web. According to this story, in the 1980s a group of teenagers were camping overnight in the Devils' Washbowl when one was clubbed over the head and dragged into the night by a man wearing a pig's head. I had found the story on a website that presented it as true, but it turns out that particular story was actually written by horror writer William Dalphin. Fact and fiction are intertwined in the Pigman legend...

This February, the Pigman got his widest exposure yet when the TV show Monsters and Mysteries in America ran a segment on Northfield's favorite monster. With taglines like "Half human, half hog, 100% hideous" and "Where the man ends and the pig begins is anybody's guess", the show featured some of the familiar Pigman stories, but also included some that were new to me. For example, a young man making out with his girlfriend in the Devil's Washbowl is attacked by something that leaves claw marks on his stomach, and a group of teenagers encounter something pale and swine-like that tosses branches at them as they walk in the woods.


 
The Pigman stories have always seemed like they were shaped by basic horror movie tropes: misbehaving teenagers, dark woods, and sexual transgression. The Pigman himself is often described as naked, pink, hairy, and sometimes muscular. He's a terrifying walking libido. One older Northfield resident even says teenage boys would tell the story to get their girlfriends to cuddle a little closer. Anyway, Monsters and Mysteries presents these stories in an appropriately lurid fashion, or as lurid as a basic cable show can get away with.

I'm sure this isn't the last of the Pigman saga. Now that he has appeared on TV I'm sure that more stories about his porcine terror will pop up. Whether the stories are true or false, it's interesting to watch as a legend takes shape.