Haunted Catskills by Lisa LaMonica

Author:Lisa LaMonica
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Octagon House, Delaware County. Courtesy of Delaware County Historical Association.

Mr. Williams was soon home. He was hesitant about revealing his experience, but finally, when the family was seated about the fireplace, he told what had happened. As he came to the passage “tell Molly Meyers she can come home,” the old family cat jumped from Mrs. Mayham’s lap, ran to the open fireplace, leaped up the chimney, and was never seen again.

In the 1970s, Nancy J. Haynes gathered much research and wrote a paper on her interviews with both young and old county inhabitants concerning the legend of Spook Woods in the town of Kortright, Delaware County, and the murdered peddler believed to be haunting those woods. Her friend Peg Kenyon, a member of the Route 10 Historians, gave me a copy of the paper, which had been included in a spring program the historians held entitled “Mysteries Along the Route 10 Corridor.”

At the time of her interviews, locals were recalling a very old tale from 150 years prior. The tale was that of a peddler who passed through monthly with his wares and would stay at an inn on the old Catskill Turnpike owned by the Blakeleys. The legend holds that the peddler was either disappeared or was murdered and then set about haunting the woods and the inn.

The farm/inn was originally composed of 1,000 acres but was later split into parcels of 333.3 acres given to each of Blakeleys’ sons. After the Blakeleys owned the inn, the structure changed hands over the years. Subsequent owners told of a window that would never stay shut or retain glass when fixed, as well as a bloodstain on the floor of the ballroom—where the peddler’s murder is believed to have taken place—that could never be removed by cleaning or even sanding of the floor.

On his last visit to the inn, the peddler disappeared after checking in. It was said that he always carried with him a large sum of money, and the people who owned the tavern seemed to become rich after his disappearance. The inn always had lots of young people stopping by, and they often held parties. One night, some of the guests at one such party heard strange noises coming from the cellar, broke up the party and at 4:00 a.m. heard running water. One person, deciding to investigate, saw Mrs. Blakeley (the innkeeper’s wife) doing some washing. There was blood in the water in which she had washed the clothes, and from then on, everyone assumed that the Blakeleys had murdered the peddler.

Locals told tales of the peddler running through the woods near the inn with his head in his hands, and some believed he was killed in either the woods or ballroom and then possibly walled up in the cellar.

There was also the story of a man from Bloomville who went to the inn to talk to Mr. Blakeley and, finding him at the well, remarked at how large a stone Mr. Blakeley had atop of the well and how heavy it was.

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