Slightly Odd Fitchburg

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! Fitch Bits: The Angry Old Ghost of The Old Powder House DID YOU KNOW that The Old Powder House in Somerville, MA. is haunted by a very angry ghost? The building was constructed as a windmill around 1703 for the Mallet family farm. It was subsequently sold to Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1747, and turned into a powder magazine. That's where it got its name and it actually featured somewhat heavily in the Revolution. It was seized by the British because it held gunpowder and munitions for the colonies. One thing led to another and there was a battle fought over it. That's later than our story, though. Back when it was still a windmill, it was the scene of a grisly murder! At least that's the fo

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the damned story! Fitch Bits: Dudleytown - New England's Village of the Damned! DID YOU KNOW that Dudleytown, Connecticut might just be the real Village of the Damned? Despite its name, Dudleytown was never an actual town. It was just a part of Cornwall, Connecticut that was settled in the early 1740s by Thomas Griffis, followed by Gideon Dudley and, by 1753, Barzillai Dudley and Abiel Dudley; Martin Dudley joined them a few years later. More families came afterward and it turned into its own settlement. It's also in a valley known as Dark Forest Entry, so... you know. Things were never going to work out for it. Anyway, the legend goes that the founders of Dudleytown were descended from Edmund Dudley, an English nob

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Well, the weather is certainly changing and it makes me miss walking around Boston Common and being assaulted by entitled squirrels looking for a handout. As such: DID YOU KNOW that Boylston Station is haunted? Yeah, so not only is it the very first subway station in the United States, it's also the location of a mass burial site! Workers uncovered between 900 and 1,100 bodies when they dug out the tunnel, and they were all British soldiers! Most people don't realize the entire Common was a British encampment during the war. The only good Redcoat is a dead Redcoat and they all had to get buried somewhere! Early trolley drivers used to report seeing apparitions of men in red coats in the tunnels around

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Fitch Bits: The Windham Frog Attack DID YOU KNOW that Windham Center, Connecticut was attacked by frogs?   Okay, not really, but that's the myth. It all stems from one summer night in 1754. This was a little before the start of the American Revolution and right at the beginning of the French and Indian War. Tensions were high and the British and French were constantly fighting for control of this area.   So, you have people on edge, hot weather, and the general boredom of being alive in the 18th century when the good residents of Windham Green got jolted awake in the middle of the night and "Rushing out from their beds, they listened with horror and amazement... A din, a roar, an indescribable hubbub

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story!   Fitch Bits: Concealed Shoes DID YOU KNOW that your old New England home might have shoes in its walls?   Although it's not unique to New England, there happen to be more instances of it here than anywhere else in the country. It's even more common in New England's prequel: England, England. That's why the phenomenon is most likely an immigrant from the U.K. and Europe.   They're called concealed shoes and there's no single consensus as to why they were put in the walls. It could go all the way back to ritualistic sacrifice on new foundations to protect and bless new homes and public houses. As sacrifice fell out of fashion, the tradition stuck and people used leather shoes (animal sk

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Fitch Bits: Champ DID YOU KNOW that New England has its own lake monster? Champ is his name and being a cryptid is his game! He's said to live in the waters of Lake Champlain in Vermont. There have been more than 300 documented sightings and P.T. Barnum, himself, once offered a $20,000 reward to anyone who could bring him the creature, dead or alive. One of the earliest sightings by western eyes was in 1819 by a ship's captain. He reported that he saw a creature over 180 feet long with "eyes like peeled onions!" The story goes even further back in time, though. The Iroquois and Abenaki tribes both have ancient legends of a lake monster that lurked in the lake and ate people. The Abenaki even

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Fitch Bits: The New England Man in Black DID YOU KNOW that New England has its own Men in Black stories? The most famous one happened to a fellier by the name of Dr. Herbert Hopkins in Old Orchard Beach in Maine. He was putting supposed UFO abductees and witnesses under hypnosis and studying their cases. He must have gotten a little to close to some form of truth because a Man in Black showed up at his house on September 11, 1976! He was your typical Man in Black with a black suit, white shirt, and black hat. His skin was pale, his lips were too red, and he lacked any hair; eyebrows and eyelashes included. He knew facts about Hopkins that he had no business knowing, including that he had two coins in his pock

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! The Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone DID YOU KNOW that there's a mystery stone in New Hampshire? Sometimes known as the Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone, this thing was pulled from six feet of earth, by laborers, digging holes for a fence in 1872. The owner of the property, one Seneca Augustus Ladd immediately caught it and examined it. It's very clearly not a natural formation, but that's pretty much all we know about it. Theories have it being created by anyone from the Inuit to the Celts. Ladd never tried to make money off it, so a hoax seems unlikely. It made its way to the New Hampshire Historical Society in 1927, where it remains to this day. So, was it made by ancient Celts visiting North A

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg and following us at Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Fitch Bits: Leather Man Okay, so this might actually become a full post but, DID YOU KNOW that a man clad in rough, stiff leather used to walk a constant 365 mile circuit through western Connecticut and eastern New York? Dubbed Leather Man, he was first spotted in 1857, walking between the Hudson and Connecticut rivers. He walked about ten miles a day and never stopped. It didn't matter how hot the summer sun was or how cold the winter, he walked all day, every day, completing his circuit every single year. The leather he wore was handmade and barely fit for a human. He rarely spoke a word and never accepted any invitations for a place to sleep at night. He simply found a cave or built a shelter when it was

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg and following us at Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the sad story! The Hartford, Vermont Railroad Disaster DID YOU KNOW that Hartford, Vermont is home to one of the country's worst railroad disasters in history? It happened in the winter of 1887 and claimed the lives of 37 passengers. A further 50 people were injured in the accident. Just like a few days ago, Vermont was in the middle of an arctic blast that froze the White River solid,  below the Woodstock bridge in -18 degree cold. The Montreal Express, out of Boston, was over an hour behind schedule. Ordered to make up for lost time, the engineer hit the bridge at a higher than usual speed. The rear passenger car hit a break in the track and that was all it took. It went over the bridge and took two additional cars wit