In Episode 396 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger drive down Hell Hollow Road in Voluntown, Connecticut, searching for the Witch of Hell Hollow and a solitary grave deep in the woods. There’s talk of disembodied shrieks in the woods, plus a curse from Little Maude who died in 1886. How did it happen? We talk to a direct decedent of Maude to get the answers.
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Special Guest: Marnie Reynolds-Bourque
Theme Music by: John Judd
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[DRIVING]
JEFF: We’re cruising down Route 49 in Voluntown, Connecticut.
RAY: Yup.
JEFF: Annnnd we’re going to be taking our next right up ahead.
RAY: Okay.
[BLINKAH]
RAY: Wait a minute…. This road is called Hell Hollow Road?!
JEFF: It is!
RAY: I think we’ve covered enough stories in enough places called “hollows” to know they’re just about all haunted.
JEFF: It seems that way, doesn’t it?
RAY: But HELL Hollow?! That’s another level.
JEFF: It is. They say you’ll hear disembodied shrieks out here in these woods. That’s there’s a an old desecrated grave out here in the woods that’s been cursed. We’ve come to Hell Hollow to pick apart the fact from fiction and search for the Witch of Hell Hollow.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger. Welcome to Episode 396 of the New England Legends podcast.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Thanks for riding along with us as we chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. Please be sure to hit that subscribe button and we’ll bring you new stories of ghosts, monsters, aliens, roadside oddities, and other wicked strangeness each week.
JEFF: We’ll go searching for the Witch of Hell Hollow Road right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
[DRIVING]
RAY: So Jeff, we’re driving on Hell Hollow Road in Voluntown, Connecticut.
JEFF: Right.
RAY: Right now we’re passing some nice middle class homes. The homeowners clearly take care of their properties. I see some kids toys in one of the yards, so families obviously live here.
JEFF: Yeah, I see that.
RAY: Annd now those homes are behind us. Hell Hollow Road is winding its way into the woods.
JEFF: Yeah, it’s nothing but a spooky road in the forest now. We’re in the Pachaug State Forest. We just passed Hello Hollow Pond on our right. (PAUSE) Okay, we’re going to make a left up here.
[BLINKAH]
RAY: Okay. Yikes, this is a dirt road. It’s going to be slow going.
JEFF: And this will take us deeper into Hell Hollow.
[DRIVING]
JEFF: Okay, let’s pull over up here.
[CAR STOPS / DOORS CLOSE]
RAY: There’s a little pond here.
JEFF: That would be Driscoll’s Pond.
RAY: And I see a brook that feeds the pond.
JEFF: And that would be Mt. Misery Brook.
RAY: Mt. Misery?!
JEFF: Yeah.
RAY: Come onnnn… Mt. Misery in Hell Hollow? And we’re looking for a witch and a curse in a place no one would hear us scream? Are we going to get out of here alive?
JEFF: You never know. So the Hell Hollow name has a few different origins. But one story that’s been passed around for a long time is that back in the late 1600s, there was once a Native American girl who was killed in this valley by British soldiers. They say her unjust murder cursed this land, and that you can still hear her shrieks echo throughout Hell Hollow. There’s talk of a curse, too.
RAY: We’ve talked a lot about how terrible events like that from the past haunt and curse us no matter what.
JEFF: So true. For some it’s a metaphor, for others it’s literal. The other version of how this place got its name is a little more mundane but practical. Maybe our Puritanical ancestors wanted to keep people away mainly because as farmland goes, the soil is rocky and rough. Plus, it’s swampy and marshy. It’s a place to be avoided for most folks… but not all.
RAY: There’s always the hermits, or those who want to be away from it all.
JEFF: Or those who maybe can’t afford more prime real estate.
RAY: Here’s a little more background on Voluntown. The region was named Volunteer Town back in the year 1700 in honor of the volunteer soldiers who fought in the Narragansett War. So maybe there’s some truth to the Native American girl getting murdered here. The town officially incorporated in 1721. The early industries were farms and a few textiles mills. It’s always been a small and quiet town. The kind of town where everyone knows each other.
JEFF: A small town with some secrets and some skeletons in its closets. There’s talk of a witch hanged in these woods. Her grave desecrated, and so her spirit roams the forest. We’re going to dive deep on this one, because we got the chance to connect with a direct descendant of this alleged ghost! You’ll hear from her soon. To figure out this haunting, let’s head back to the year 1886.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: It’s October of 1886 here in the Hell Hollow section of Voluntown, Connecticut, and we’re standing on the farm of Mercy and Charles Reynolds. The two own this area of land and a single horse. They’ve only been here for a few years. The valley is wide open with rolling hills, but a few ponds and streams definitely give sections of this hollow a swampy look.
JEFF: It’s not an easy existence. The land is rough, marshy, and not easy to work. But this is what the Reynolds family could afford.
RAY: Mercy and Charles don’t have an easy life here in Voluntown. Two of their sons died three years ago from diphtheria—a bacterial infection that attacks the nose and throat. Both brothers were buried in the family plot not too far from here.
JEFF: But that’s how life goes out here on these rural farms. Tragically, not every child grows up. But still, life does go on. It has to. Almost three years ago, Mercy and Charles welcomed their daughter Maude into the world.
RAY: Maude has been a joy around the house. A cute kid with a big smile. But recently, the poor girl has been ill.
[CHILD’S COUGH]
RAY: Mom and dad are keeping a close eye on her.
JEFF: A few days go by, and Maude is still sick, but she still has her appetite which is always a good sign.
RAY: It’s the morning of October 12th, and Mercy Reynolds has come in to check on how her daughter Maude is doing. It takes only a glance to see that worst has happened. Sadly, Maude passed away in the night. Next to the child’s lifeless body, her mother finds an apple with a few bites taken out of it. The Reynolds Family is completely crushed by the discovery. Maude was just shy of her third birthday.
JEFF: Charles thinks maybe Maude choked on a piece of apple. But the doctor who writes up the death certificate lists the cause of death as diphtheria. Which means possibly both were true. The girl was sick, and maybe her constricted throat couldn’t handle the bite of apple.
RAY: Maude’s heartbroken mother sees her daughter’s teeth marks in the apple and decides she wants to preserve the half-eaten fruit. She places the apple in a jar and fills it with alcohol so she can see her daughter’s teeth marks for a while longer.
JEFF: Next comes the somber task of burying the young girl’s body. Charles is ready to dig a grave in the family plot on the far side of their land, but Mercy won’t hear of it. She insists on placing the grave on a small hill near the house so she can see it from the window.
[DIG DIG DIG]
JEFF: So, the grave is dug. Maude’s small body is laid to rest, and some rocks are placed around the grave.
RAY: As soon as Charles can gather the funds, he also adds a cement cross to the grave. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
JEFF: There’s a lot more to say on this one.
RAY: I bet! It doesn’t sound like Maude Reynolds was ever a witch. She wasn’t even three when she died.
JEFF: No one thought Maude was a witch when she was alive, or for years after her death for that matter. This is the case of multiple legends combining over time.
RAY: So how did this all happen?
JEFF: First, the Reynolds family took care of Maude’s grave for as long as they lived here. But when the Great Depression hit in the 1930s, these farms were devastated. The farmers either abandoned their land, or sold it to the state, which led to Connecticut forming the Pachaug State Forest. Trees began to fill in, and now all of this land is a forest.
RAY: Okay, I think I’m seeing how this ghostly legend is coming together. The home, farm, AND grave are abandoned by the family.
JEFF: Right.
RAY: The forest grows, and suddenly this lone grave is out here isolated.
JEFF: You’re exactly right. By the 1950s and 1960s, vandals would come out here and knock over the cross, or leave graffiti on the nearby stones. At one point the five-foot-tall cement cross was stolen. Maude’s sister Lydia married a man named Jesse who used to come out here periodically and clean up the grave and even replaced the broken cross, but eventually he passed away leaving no one to care for the grave. According to some locals, at one point a sign was placed by the grave warning any vandals that they would be cursed if they messed with little Maude.
RAY: Oh man, I bet a sign like that only made it worse. And that sign would explain the witch reputation too. If there’s no marker, you have no idea how old the person was at the time of death.
JEFF: Plus, we have no record of any hanging out here. This is a case of someone combining various backstories.
[WALKING IN THE WOODS]
RAY: So we’re walking deeper into the woods looking for Maude’s grave.
JEFF: Though we’re not going to offer exact coordinates as to where we are, we can tell you the grave is near the Voluntown and Sterling town lines. And there it is just ahead.
RAY: So, I can see there are some large rocks lying around it. It’s located near a colonial stone wall, and one single slab of a stone is standing upright. There are no markings on the slab, it’s just a rock that’s obviously been placed here.
JEFF: And look at that!
RAY: Yeah, around the stone some people have left some trinkets. I see a couple of pennies. There’s a small jar filled with some kind of liquid that I won’t be touching. Some decayed floors too.
JEFF: For a little extra help with this story, we’ve brought in a special guest with a unique connection.
MARNIE: My name is Marnie Reynolds-Bourque, and Maude Reynolds was my Great Aunt.
RAY: Wow! It’s amazing to speak with a direct descendant of Maude.
JEFF: Marnie is 54 years old now and living in Sterling, Connecticut, but she grew up next door in Moosup. So right in the region of Hell Hollow Road. Maude had a brother named Charles that was Marnie’s Great Grandfather. Marnie is now an artist, she’s written and illustrated several children’s books, but she also wrote a novel about this story called: Mercy of Hell Hollow: Her Lost Journal 1883 – 1887.
RAY: Marnie, how did you first learn you were related to Maude Reynolds?
MARNIE: I went to a Brownies meeting when I was in second grade and heard all about the Witch of Hell Hollow. I came home and told my parents about it at the dinner table and my father without missing a beat goes, oh it’s your aunt.
RAY: That’s quite a bomb to drop on a kid.
MARNIE: How I was brought up was, I would go to Pachaug Forest, I’m an only child, so my mom and dad and I would go for a hike through the woods. I would hear about the Reynolds homestead, and there was lilacs along the road, and my father actually took some of the cuttings home and we have lilacs at our home from the homestead, and he would talk about my relatives. So I grew up just knowing that my relatives lived there. I was little, so I didn’t put a lot of thought into it. As I got older and got into high school, that’s when I started hearing about the Witch of Hell Hollow.
JEFF: What were the kids in high school saying about the Witch?
MARNIE: I had a classmate that was actually bragging about urinating on the grave, which made me very upset because that’s my family. And even if it wasn’t my family, I don’t feel you should be doing that. So I wanted to go clean up the grave and stuff, buy my father was a little nervous about the legend and said: I don’t want you near the grave.
JEFF: Marnie explained that she does still visit the grave from time to time, but she doesn’t want to do anything to draw attention to Maude, which is why she doesn’t fix up her final resting place. People have tried that before. It’s a fine line between sharing the story and protecting the innocent dead. We get the struggle, we go through it too.
MARNIE: At this point in my life I kind of feel like I’m her keeper. I don’t want anyone hurting her. And that’s why I wrote the novel, because I said, Boy what a story this is, because there’s more to the story, because she had two older brothers that died, so my poor grandmother lost three children.
JEFF: Defacing or harming a grave is a universal taboo. You’re not supposed to do it across almost all cultures. Every person in the ground was once someone’s child, their sibling, or their parent, or relative. When we look at this story through time, we can see how the notion of the girl becoming a witch who has cursed this land came to be. But as for the ghost, maybe we should be haunted by Little Maude. Not just so we remember, but so we never forget to respect the dead who came before us.
RAY: We’ll let Marnie Reynolds-Bourque have the last word on this.
MARNIE: I would just hope people would humanize her and leave her to rest in peace.
[OUTTRO]
RAY: Amen. And that takes us to After the Legend where we dig a little deeper into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
JEFF: After the Legend is brought to you by our patreon patrons! Without our patrons, there is no podcast, so we are most grateful for their help with our hosting and production costs, marketing, travel, and everything else it takes to bring you two podcasts each week. It’s only $3 bucks per month and for that you get early ad-free access to new episodes, plus bonus episodes and content that no one else gets to hear. Just head over to patreon.com/NewEnglandLegends to sign up. We’d appreciate it.
To see a picture of Maude’s grave taken by the great Frank Grace, click on the link in our episode description, where you can also see a picture of Charles and Mercy Reynolds that Marnie shared with us. You can also go to our website and click on Episode 396.
I’d like to point out that almost every account of this story called the parents of Maude Lucy and Gilbert Reynolds. Marnie, who is family said, his name was Charles Gilbert Reynold, but she always knew him as Charles, and she had only every heard the name Mercy, not Lucy, which is why we went with that.
Got a weird story you think we should check out for a future podcast? Reach out to us anytime through our website. Most of our story leads come from you! Plus, we love hearing from you. Our website is also the place where you can find our interactive map to plan your own legend trip, plus dates to see Jeff’s ongoing story tour and dates to see my band the Pub Kings.
Thank you to our patreon patrons, thank you to our sponsors, and our theme music is by John Judd.
Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.
