In my studies on ghost lore, I have found several different versions of tales about Emily's Bridge. These stories appear in many modern ghost books, and the legends perpetuated have found a permanent place in Vermont ghost lore. The stories all collaborate the fact that centuries ago, there was a young woman who was left by her lover was killed on the bridge. Her angry spirit now haunts the bridge and torments photographers and teenagers who either are seeking her, or simply there to enjoy the view.
The bridge is officially named the Goldbrook bridge, the brook below being so named when Captain A. H. Slayton, who had experienced the gold rush in California found a few flakes of gold on the banks of the brook. He was convinced that there must be a rich gold vein nearby, and purchased the farm where he found the gold, intending to find it. The vein either is not there, or doesn't exist because the gentleman never found it, although he did find enough eventually to make a watch chain with the flakes that he found. All told, he found what was about $100.00 worth of gold.
The scene is a picturesque New England-covered bridge located in Stowe, Vermont, down a winding, washboard dirt road that is frequently found in our beautiful state. The brook is beautiful, and on a summer day the long undisturbed trees surrounding the bridge are a quiet reminder of the age of the beautiful bridge. There are a few houses in view, but for the most part down this old dirt road the feelings of isolation here are strong. The bridge is dark and foreboding, perhaps due to the dark walnut stain that is on the timbers in the front of the bridge. It does not, however explain all the dark tales that surround this beautiful landmark. Tales of a far more sinister nature than what you would imagine from just visiting the bridge on a summer's day, unless you were to come across Emily, that is.
The legend is a well-known one, and everyone has their own version. It was a surprise for me to discover, however, that these legends were virtually unknown here thirty years ago, according to long time Stowe residents who had lived there all their lives. Most people in their fifties and older tell that they never heard of Emily's Bridge when they were in school, although by now almost everyone has read a version either in the local paper, or in Joe Citro's books, or on the news during October, when television crews enjoy exploiting frightening stories in their preparations for Halloween. Here are the versions that most people by now have heard:
In one version, Emily met a young man that she fell in love with. For whatever reasons, her parents did not approve of the young man, or his did not approve of her, and she was forbidden to marry, or even see him. But the emotions of the young can rarely be tempered by the old, and she made plans to elope. The meeting place for these two lovers, was, as the legends go, the Goldbrook bridge. Emily quietly left her house on the appointed night, and no one in the family heard her leave. She waited on the bridge for her young paramour, but he never showed up that fateful night. Emily was heartbroken, and she took her own life by hanging herself on the bridge that very night. Her lonely spirit now haunts the bridge waiting for the lover that has never arrived. It is said by the teenagers of the area that if you were to drive your car through the bridge on Halloween night, you can hear Emily's toenails dragging along the roof of your car, and according to a gentleman that lives very close by the bridge, spectators become quite loud there on Halloween waiting for Emily to put in an appearance.
Another version of this Vermont legend is that she met the man who stole her heart, and the couple made plans to marry. The fateful day arrived, and Emily went to the church in her beautiful red wedding dress ready to give herself to the gentleman in holy wedlock. The groom never arrived, and the jilted bride took the family wagon in a frenzy of anger and sorrow. She was merciless on the horses, and whipped them until they were traveling at an incredible pace, planning perhaps to confront the faithless groom. As she approached the bridge she failed to negotiate the turn right before the bridge and drove the horses and carriage over the bank and onto the rocky brook below. Both the horses and Emily were killed in the accident. In this legend we understand that she was a victim of a horrible accident, and yet her angry, vengeful spirit still resides on the bridge.
This legend is a bit hard to believe if you have been to the bridge and looked down the side. The bridge is not very high, and although there are a great many rocks lining the river bed, it is hard to imagine an accident that would take the lives of Emily and her team. It has been rumored that this event could have possibly taken place on the High Bridge, a bridge that was located about a quarter mile downstream from the Goldbrook. This bridge was situated much higher over the water, and it would have been much more believable that an accident on that bridge could have taken someone's life. The High Bridge no longer exists, however, so we cannot judge if that bridge was haunted or if it was the bridge where the jilted bride lost her life.
I read in Haunted America by Michael Norman and Beth Scott that during this era the bridge did not have a roof, but after talking to the president of the Stowe Historical Society, I learned that there was no "era" when the bridge had no roof.
Another legend, a new one that I have only recently dug up was that Emily was on her way to get married. As she walked through the bridge resplendent in her wedding attire, a runaway team of horses trampled the young woman to death. In this version, perhaps the young lady does not even realize that she is dead, for she apparently met a quick and untimely end.
In the final legend that I have found, we even have a name for the man who was allegedly Emily's lover. The man's name was Donald, and this legend does not cast him in a particularly favorable light, either. The picture of Emily is changed too, for the other legends it is implied that she was a young, very impressionable girl. In this story, she is an overweight, ugly woman of 35, who falls desperately in love with Donald. She pursues him blindly, and he does not even like the girl. This dislike, however, does not stop him from getting her pregnant. Her father is furious, and insists that the couple marry. Donald has no desire to do so, and in desperation, takes his own life on the Stowe High Bridge, the other covered bridge that no longer exists. Emily lives on, however, until she gives birth prematurely to twins. Both the babies die, and Emily's sanity is shattered by the loss of the children and her lover. She takes her own life on the Goldbrook.
All these stories have the classic ingredients for a haunting, strong emotions, unresolved conflicts and a grief that overwhelm the participants. How accurate are they? Is at least one of the legends possibly true?
To test the accuracy theory, I went back and investigated some information cited in different books and papers that mention Emily. I was surprised to discover that prior to 1974, when the book "Bridges of Lamoille County" came out, there was no legend of the bridge. Apparently, the author had used a high school girl's speech paper as a reference referring to the ghost story on the bridge. The girl, who had written the story back around 1968, was later questioned about the paper she had written. Originally, she had claimed that she had interviewed several elderly Stowe residences, and that the paper was a collection of the stories that she had collected from them. After the book came out, however, she admitted that she had gotten all of her information from an Ouija board.
I spoke with Joe Citro, the Vermont folklorist, who also says that he can find no evidence of the story of Emily prior to that date. The closest that he has come to is a woman who claims that in 1970, she herself made up the stories of the bridge to frighten and entertain a group of college students during a heavy rainstorm. According to her, it was the college students who did the rest spreading the story by word of mouth, and the story has become what it is today, and urban legend that will now stick in peoples minds as the gospel truth.
So, now that we have traced the story and it's origins, the question is, which came first, the chicken or the egg? The story or the haunting? I have no doubt that the bridge is haunted. Many experiences other than my own have been reported happening around that bridge. Was it always haunted, or did the kids, who for fun back in the 1970's and 1980's brought Ouija boards of their own to the bridge, hold seances and call something up that continues to haunt the area? There have been reports, told by nurses who worked in the Emergency room closest to the bridge, telling of young kids who were brought into the hospital after seances went wrong up there. There was one student who was badly scratched and bruised, one who went hysterical and her parents had to call in a priest, and many others.
Who knows why the bridge is haunted? What I do know is that like one of my favorite authors, Jean Harold Bravand, I have followed the urban legend back to its origin. I know where the stories come from, and yet even if I printed that information in Vermont's leading newspapers and on the 5:00 news from now till Halloween, people would still believe in, and share the tragic story of Emily, and how she was left, heartbroken up there at the Goldbrook Bridge.
Web Page created by Dr. Dave Oester, Webmaster
Copyrighted © 2000 by Dave Oester, All Rights Reserved
