Technology
The Legend of Emily's Bridge - Vermont
In this episode of Haunted American History, Christopher Feinstein delves into the chilling legend of Emily's Bridge in Vermont, where the ghost of a heartbroken woman is said to haunt those who ...
The Legend of Emily's Bridge - Vermont
Technology •
0:00 / 0:00
Interactive Transcript
spk_0
Today's episode is sponsored by, I know what you did last summer.
spk_0
Get it now on digital.
spk_0
When five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, they cover up their involvement
spk_0
and make a pact to keep it a secret, rather than face the consequences.
spk_0
A year later, their past comes back to haunt them, and they're forced to confront a horrifying
spk_0
truth.
spk_0
Someone knows what they did last summer, and is hellbent on revenge.
spk_0
As one by one, the friends are stalked by a killer.
spk_0
They discover this happened before, so they turn to two survivors of the legendary South
spk_0
Port massacre of 1997 for help.
spk_0
Starring Madeline Klein, Chase Suwonders, Jonah Howard King with Freddie Prince Jr. and Jennifer
spk_0
Love Hewitt.
spk_0
I know what you did last summer is a perfect summer slasher, says Jordan Cuchillo of NPR.
spk_0
Your summer is not over yet.
spk_0
Don't miss a killer movie night at home.
spk_0
There's a road in Stovermont, a winding, treeline road that dips and curves through what they
spk_0
call Sto Hollow.
spk_0
If you follow it long enough, you'll come to a bridge.
spk_0
It's not very long, only about 50 feet, and it spans a rocky stream called Goldbrook.
spk_0
It's a covered bridge.
spk_0
Built in 1844 with dark, weathered wood and a gabled roof that makes it look like a tunnel
spk_0
to another time.
spk_0
Its official name is the Goldbrook Covered Bridge, but nobody calls it that.
spk_0
To the locals and to the thousands of thrill seekers who travel from all over the country
spk_0
to see it, it has another name, Emily's Bridge.
spk_0
The story, the one that everyone tells, is a classic piece of New England Gothic.
spk_0
Sometime in the mid-1800s, a young woman named Emily, poor as a church mouse fell desperately
spk_0
in love with a young man from one of Sto's wealthiest families.
spk_0
His parents of course would never approve.
spk_0
This is a tale as old as time, a romance doomed by class and circumstance.
spk_0
So the lovers did what doomed lovers do.
spk_0
They made a plan to escape.
spk_0
The rendezvous point?
spk_0
You guessed it, the covered bridge over Goldbrook.
spk_0
And the time they picked was midnight.
spk_0
Emily, heart pounding with a mix of fear and hope, arrived just as planned.
spk_0
She waited in the darkness of the bridge, the sound of the water below her only companion.
spk_0
She waited and waited.
spk_0
The appointed hour came and went, and her lover never showed.
spk_0
We don't know why.
spk_0
Was he stopped by his parents?
spk_0
Did he lose his nerve?
spk_0
Did he ever love her at all?
spk_0
The legend doesn't care about the reasons.
spk_0
It only cares about Emily.
spk_0
Heartbroken, humiliated, and seeing no way to return home in shame,
spk_0
she made a final desperate choice.
spk_0
She climbed into the rafters of that dark wooden bridge, and she hanged herself.
spk_0
They say her spirit never left.
spk_0
They say she's still there, waiting for a lover who will never arrive.
spk_0
Her sorrow, curdling into a vengeful desperate anger with each passing near.
spk_0
And if you visit her bridge, especially after dark, you might just find out how angry she's
spk_0
become.
spk_0
Do you believe in ghosts?
spk_0
Join me on the journey through America's dark and haunted past as we explore the ghost
spk_0
stories and folklore that have been passed down for generations.
spk_0
What scares you?
spk_0
Let's find out.
spk_0
I'm Christopher Feinstein, and this is haunted American history.
spk_0
Now, Stowe is famous for a lot of things.
spk_0
Firstly, it's called the Ski Capital of the East.
spk_0
It's where the Von Trapp family, yes, that Von Trapp family, where you young folks listening,
spk_0
that's the family from the sound of music.
spk_0
And the reason they settled down here was because it reminded them of Austria.
spk_0
It's a place of stunning, fall foliage, pricey, alpine hotels, and postcard, perfect,
spk_0
New England charm.
spk_0
It is, by all accounts, a lovely place, which makes the story of Emily's bridge all the
spk_0
more jarring.
spk_0
It's a raw, dark, gothic tragedy that feels completely at a place in a wealthy, polished
spk_0
resort town.
spk_0
And maybe that's why it's so powerful.
spk_0
The quick story I told you in the open, the jilted lover who hangs herself from the bridge,
spk_0
that's the prime time network television version of the legend.
spk_0
It's clean, it's tragic, it's easy to digest, and just as easy to repeat.
spk_0
But when you start digging into the folklore of Emily's bridge, you realize it's not one
spk_0
story.
spk_0
It's a whole buffet of tragedy.
spk_0
A choozerone adventure of despair, if you will.
spk_0
Because in another version, Emily doesn't hang herself.
spk_0
No, stood up at the bridge, she throws herself into the rocky brook below.
spk_0
A different method, same heart breaking result.
spk_0
But what if it wasn't suicide at all?
spk_0
What if it was an accident?
spk_0
One popular variation claims Emily was on her way to her own wedding, giddy with excitement,
spk_0
when her horse suddenly bolted on approach to the bridge.
spk_0
She was thrown from the carriage, her body dashed onto the rocks below.
spk_0
In this version, she's not a vengeful spirit, but a confused one.
spk_0
Forever moaning and groaning for the love that she was about to celebrate.
spk_0
We've heard that story before.
spk_0
Okay, so so far we have a suicide by hanging, suicide by jumping, and an accidental death
spk_0
by Equestrian Chaos.
spk_0
But we're just getting warmed up, because the story gets a little darker.
spk_0
What if the lover did show up?
spk_0
One grim version of the tale says that Emily had recently told her bow that she was pregnant.
spk_0
Well, he told her to meet him at the bridge to discuss their future, an obvious place
spk_0
to meet someone who you wish to discuss their future with.
spk_0
But when she arrived, he wasn't there to alope, he wasn't there to talk about their future,
spk_0
he was there to silence her.
spk_0
He murdered her on that bridge to keep his reputation and her secret from ever coming
spk_0
to light and shaming his family.
spk_0
And if you don't like that, how about this one?
spk_0
Emily arrives at the bridge at midnight, but it's not her lover she finds waiting in the darkness.
spk_0
It's his mother, the wealthy matriarch determined to prevent her son from marrying this poor
spk_0
country girl.
spk_0
She confronts Emily in argument ensues, and the mother in the fit of rage murders Emily
spk_0
right there on the bridge.
spk_0
So now let's recap all of our options for Emily's demise.
spk_0
She was jilted, man hanged herself, jilted and jumped, died in a carriage accident,
spk_0
was murdered by her lover, or was murdered by her lover's mom.
spk_0
It's like a game of clue, but every answer is just equally depressing.
spk_0
And the timeline is just as messy.
spk_0
Some say this all happened in the 1850s.
spk_0
Others place it in the late 1800s or even as late as the 1920s.
spk_0
The only thing anyone ever seems to agree on is that her name was Emily and she died tragically
spk_0
at this bridge.
spk_0
Except maybe not.
spk_0
There's one story, a bizarrely specific one that comes from a high school research project
spk_0
from 1969.
spk_0
This version says that in 1925, it was a 36 year old woman named Emily Smith, described rather
spk_0
unkindly as fat and not very pretty.
spk_0
She was pregnant by a man named Donald, who did not lover.
spk_0
When her father tried to force a marriage, Donald and despair went to the Goldbrook bridge
spk_0
and jumped to his death.
spk_0
A month later, Emily gave birth to twins who died shortly after.
spk_0
Utterly broken, Emily put on her wedding dress and threw herself off a different bridge,
spk_0
a high bridge.
spk_0
Keep that little detail about the high bridge in your back pocket, it's going to be important later.
spk_0
The point is the legend of Emily is a tangled, contradictory mess, and that's what makes it such perfect folklore.
spk_0
It's a story that has been shaped and reshaped by countless storytellers, each adding their own little
spk_0
flourish of tragedy.
spk_0
But the story is just a story, right?
spk_0
Words can't hurt you, we know that.
spk_0
The problem is, people who visit Emily's bridge claim that something there can.
spk_0
The sheer volume and variety of paranormal phenomena reported at this little 50-foot bridge is staggering.
spk_0
It has turned the Goldbrook bridge into a relative paranormal hotspot, drawing ghost hunters, TV crews from the travel channel,
spk_0
and curious tourists from all over the world.
spk_0
People are desperate to have an experience with Emily, and Emily, it seems, is more than happy to oblige.
spk_0
The activity, when did you guess it, is said to be the most active between the witching hours of midnight and 3 am,
spk_0
and the reports fall into a few distinct categories.
spk_0
First you have the auditory phenomena.
spk_0
People hear things, the most common are the sounds of a woman crying, screaming, or whispering.
spk_0
Some hear footsteps on the wooden planks, when the one is there, others have heard the distinct,
spk_0
horrifying sound of a rope tightening, followed by scraping on wood, as if something is being dragged across the rafters.
spk_0
And in one of the stranger accounts, some visitors report hearing phantom music like a harp or wind chime,
spk_0
seeming to emanate from under the bridge.
spk_0
Then there are the visual encounters, people see things.
spk_0
The most sought after prizes, of course, a full body, deprivation of Emily herself.
spk_0
A ghostly woman in white, seen on or near the bridge.
spk_0
More common are reports of unexplained flashing lights, strange orbs or smudges appearing on photographs.
spk_0
Car windshields suddenly fog over, only to reveal faint handprints on the glass.
spk_0
But it's the physical phenomena that really cement this legend.
spk_0
Because at Emily's bridge, people feel things.
spk_0
And sometimes those things leave a mark.
spk_0
Visitors have reported being touched, nudged, or feeling an unseen presence brush against them in the dark.
spk_0
One paranormal investigator, a Dr. Dave, even has his experience plastered on a sign at the bridge,
spk_0
claiming he felt a sense of disassociation and a sudden tightness in his neck as if he were feeling when Emily felt in her final moments.
spk_0
But Emily, it seems, has graduated from simple bumps in the night.
spk_0
Her grief has apparently turned into outright rage.
spk_0
People have emerged from the bridge with long red scratch marks on their skin,
spk_0
scratches that they can't possibly explain.
spk_0
And she doesn't just take it out on people. She takes it out on their cars.
spk_0
This is one of the most famous parts of the legend.
spk_0
For decades, there have been reports of cars passing through the bridge, getting mysterious, deep scratches in their paint jobs.
spk_0
Some have described that they looked like they were made by Wolverine from the X-Men.
spk_0
Just these huge, parallel gouges in the middle.
spk_0
Back in the day, before cars, locals claim that horses were refused to enter the bridge.
spk_0
And sometimes they would emerge with phantom bloody gashes on their body.
spk_0
It seems that Emily has a thing against transportation.
spk_0
And her interactions have only gotten more aggressive over time.
spk_0
There are multiple stories of people, usually teenagers,
spk_0
parking their car on the bridge at night to test the legend.
spk_0
They see a misty form of a woman materializing approach to the car.
spk_0
Terrified, they lock the doors and the apparition proceeds to jiggle the door handles.
spk_0
Basically trying to get inside the vehicle before eventually dissipating into the air.
spk_0
Now think about that for a second.
spk_0
A ghost. The tries to carjack you.
spk_0
So you have a bridge, haunted by a ghost of a girl named Emily,
spk_0
who died in one of a half a dozen tragic ways,
spk_0
who now spends her eternity whispering, screaming, appearing in photos, scratching people,
spk_0
keying their cars and trying to open locked doors.
spk_0
It's a terrifying and frankly very busy afterlife.
spk_0
It's a fantastic story and it's one of the most famous myths in all of Vermont.
spk_0
But it begs the question, is any of it true?
spk_0
Did a woman named Emily ever really live in Dianne Stowe?
spk_0
We're going to try and answer just that.
spk_0
Right after this quick break.
spk_0
Hey folks, real quick, just gonna pause here for a moment.
spk_0
And we are one week away from the release of my debut novel, The Forgotten Burrow.
spk_0
A longer, obviously, story that you're all familiar with.
spk_0
If you go back to the early part of the podcast,
spk_0
back when I was still finding my footing and sharing my short stories,
spk_0
a vampire in Staten Island was one of my first few episodes.
spk_0
And it was a story that was very near and dear to me.
spk_0
And that is the subject matter of my first novel.
spk_0
So I'm very, very happy to be saying that in one week I will be a published novelist.
spk_0
And it's all thanks to you guys.
spk_0
So I won't keep you too long. Thank you so much again.
spk_0
Also, disturbed me.
spk_0
The podcast with my wife and I will reshare each other.
spk_0
Disturbing stories, true crime, paranormal, the works.
spk_0
Without the other one knowing, so we're just blind reacting to each other's stories.
spk_0
I shared an episode here.
spk_0
I shared the first episode here.
spk_0
The first episode came out this last Wednesday with episode two coming out this Wednesday.
spk_0
And episode two is a doozy. So if you haven't subscribed yet,
spk_0
the link is in the show notes. Please check us out and join us over there.
spk_0
Join in on the fun and come and be disturbed.
spk_0
I got some fun things lined up for October.
spk_0
A couple of short stories.
spk_0
Halloween themed short stories that I'm going to be sharing.
spk_0
None of them really have anything to do with folklore.
spk_0
So I might just release them like separately has like a bonus episode during the week.
spk_0
I'm trying to just figure that out.
spk_0
But okay, any who when I figure it out, you all know because you'll be like,
spk_0
hey, look a new episode of haunted American history and it's not Monday.
spk_0
That's how you'll know.
spk_0
And it's not named after a state or folklore.
spk_0
It's just like a story name.
spk_0
Duh.
spk_0
Alright guys, that's enough Ramon.
spk_0
Let's continue with Vermont and Emily's bridge.
spk_0
Alright folks, later, love you.
spk_0
Before the break, we dove headfirst into the spooky, tragic and frankly confusing folklore
spk_0
of Emily's bridge and stole Vermont.
spk_0
We have a vengeful ghost, a dozen different origin stories
spk_0
and a laundry list of paranormal phenomena ranging from spooky sounds to supernatural vandalism.
spk_0
And now, it's time for my favorite part of the show.
spk_0
The part where we bring in the killjoy of all the good ghost stories.
spk_0
Historical facts.
spk_0
Before it was Emily's bridge, it was the Goldbrook covered bridge,
spk_0
or sometimes just the Stowe Hollow bridge.
spk_0
It was built around 1844 by a local man named John W. Smith,
spk_0
who reportedly bricked that his creation would last forever.
spk_0
And you know what?
spk_0
So far he's been right.
spk_0
The bridge is historically significant, not because of a ghost, but because of its architecture.
spk_0
It's a rare early example of something called a how-trust.
spk_0
It was a revolutionary design patented in 1840 that was one of the first to incorporate iron rods
spk_0
and be based on actual mathematical stress analysis.
spk_0
It was a monument to 19th century science and engineering.
spk_0
It's so significant in fact that it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
spk_0
So, we have a well-built, historically important bridge.
spk_0
What we don't have is Emily.
spk_0
Researchers and historians from both the Vermont Historical Society and the Stowe Historical Society
spk_0
have scoured the records.
spk_0
They've looked through birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses,
spk_0
town meeting minutes, cemetery lists, you name it, they look through it.
spk_0
And they have come to a very, very firm conclusion.
spk_0
There is absolutely no historical evidence to prove that Emily ever existed.
spk_0
There is no record of any woman named Emily or anyone matching her description
spk_0
dying at that bridge in the 19th or even early 20th century.
spk_0
The historical record is completely silent.
spk_0
Now, some paranormal investigators point to a lonesome grave in the Stowe cemetery
spk_0
with the headstone that reads Little M.O.L.E.
spk_0
and that is their possible proof.
spk_0
But the connection is purely speculative.
spk_0
There is nothing to actually link that grave to the bridge or to the legend.
spk_0
So, if there was no Emily, where the story comes from?
spk_0
Well, the answer seems to be the 1970s.
spk_0
That's right, the legend of Emily doesn't appear to be an old tale passed down through the generations at all.
spk_0
All credible research points to it being a modern invention.
spk_0
Born in either the late 60s or early 70s, there are two main origins to the story itself.
spk_0
The first comes from a woman named Nancy Wolff-Stead.
spk_0
She has claimed, quite openly, that she and a friend completely invented the story.
spk_0
And the name, in the 1970s.
spk_0
And why would they do that, you ask?
spk_0
The scared local kids were used to go swimming near the bridge.
spk_0
It was just a spooky campfire tale made up for fun.
spk_0
The second theory, which might be a separate event or might have worked in tandem,
spk_0
suggests that the name first appeared around 1968.
spk_0
The story goes that a high school student was using a Ouija board on the bridge for a school project, as one does.
spk_0
And claimed to have contacted the spirit who identified herself as Emily.
spk_0
Either way, the story was born in an era that was primed for it.
spk_0
In the 1970s, it saw a massive explosion of interest in the occult in the paranormal and pop culture.
spk_0
I've talked about it before, that movie's like the exorcist and the old men were huge national phenomena.
spk_0
People were obsessed with ghosts, demons, things that go bump in the night.
spk_0
A brand new homegrown ghost story was exactly what the culture ordered.
spk_0
The tale spread, first through the town, then it was picked up by local tour guides,
spk_0
then by Vermont Folklorest, Joe Citroe, and eventually it landed on national television,
spk_0
cementing its place in paranormal pop culture.
spk_0
But here's where things get interesting.
spk_0
The story of Emily may have been invented in the 70s, but the bridge's spooky reputation is a little older.
spk_0
Reports of the Goldbrook Bridge being generically haunted,
spk_0
may have circulated as early as 1948, long before anyone had ever heard the name Emily.
spk_0
It seems the bridge already had a reputation.
spk_0
A blank canvas of spookiness just waiting for a compelling narrative to be painted on.
spk_0
And the narrative itself might not have been entirely original.
spk_0
Remember that other bridge I told you about?
spk_0
The one I told you to remember? The High Bridge?
spk_0
Stoie used to have several covered bridges.
spk_0
The High Bridge was further down Goldbrook, and as the name suggests,
spk_0
it was significantly higher than the current one,
spk_0
making it much more plausible location for a fatal jump or a fatal fall.
spk_0
The bridge burnt down in 1932.
spk_0
There's a really interesting theory known as Legend's Transference
spk_0
suggests that a ghost story originally attached to the High Bridge
spk_0
may have simply migrated upstream to the last remaining covered bridge in Sto
spk_0
after the High Bridge was destroyed.
spk_0
I remember that bizarrely specific story about Emily Smith,
spk_0
a 36 year old who jumped from the High Bridge in 1925 after her lover,
spk_0
killed himself at Goldbrook Bridge?
spk_0
It's entirely possible that the modern legend is a confused jumble of all these elements.
spk_0
A pre-existing haunted reputation at Goldbrook,
spk_0
a real or imagined tragedy from the High Bridge,
spk_0
and a narrative framework invented by some kids in the 70s.
spk_0
The ghost of Emily wasn't born, she was assembled,
spk_0
a Frankenstein's monster of folklore.
spk_0
So, case closed, right? The ghost is fake, the story's a hoax.
spk_0
It's all just overactive imaginations fueled by a story made up to scare kids,
spk_0
amplified by the natural acoustics of a wooden bridge over a rushing brook.
spk_0
It's a neat, tidy, rational explanation,
spk_0
and it would be perfectly satisfying, except from one story.
spk_0
A story that's a little harder to explain away.
spk_0
A story that makes you wonder if maybe, just maybe,
spk_0
something really is waiting in the darkness of that bridge.
spk_0
The account takes place sometime in the 1970s.
spk_0
Right around the time the legend of Emily was started to take hold.
spk_0
The school bus, full of elementary school children, was driving its route,
spk_0
and it had to pass through the Goldbrook-covered bridge.
spk_0
As the bus entered the dark wood in tunnel, the children suddenly started screaming.
spk_0
Not playful screams, but terrified ones.
spk_0
They started yelling at the bus driver, pointing up to the ceiling.
spk_0
Stop! Stop the bus! There's a girl! There's a girl hanging from the rafters!
spk_0
The bus driver annoyed and skeptical, and probably driving off a hangover.
spk_0
Slowed the bus down and peered up into the dim light of the bridge's interior.
spk_0
He saw nothing.
spk_0
Just the old wooden beams of the Howe Trust, covered in dust and cobwebs.
spk_0
Shaking his head at the kid's prank, he sped back up and exited the bridge.
spk_0
But as soon as they were in daylight, he looked in his rearview mirror.
spk_0
The children were in laughing. They were freaking out.
spk_0
They were crying, hysterical, pointing back at the bridge and screaming at him.
spk_0
Why didn't you stop? Why didn't you help her? You just left her there.
spk_0
Every single kid on the bus, they all saw it.
spk_0
A bus full of elementary school kids.
spk_0
Two young, two of concocted such a morbidly detailed prank in unison,
spk_0
all reacting with genuine terror and distress.
spk_0
So I ask you, what do we do with a story like that?
spk_0
You can debunk a single person's experience.
spk_0
You can blame funny sounds or tricks of the light or even an overactive imagination.
spk_0
But how do you explain a mass sighting by a bus full of children?
spk_0
Maybe Nancy Wolfsteed and her friend just told a story.
spk_0
A simple spooky tale to get a rise at the some kids who were swimming.
spk_0
Or maybe, when they gave that lingering presence a name, they gave it a voice.
spk_0
Maybe they didn't create a ghost but simply gave focus to something that was already there,
spk_0
waiting in the dark timbers of the Goldbrook Bridge.
spk_0
A story can't leave deep scratches down the side of your car.
spk_0
A story can't jiggle the handle of a locked door.
spk_0
A story can't make a bus full of children scream in terror.
spk_0
Or can it?
spk_0
The Goldbrook Covered Bridge still stands today.
spk_0
Carrying cars over the stream just as it has done for nearly two centuries.
spk_0
It's a piece of history, but it's also something more.
spk_0
It's a landmark of folklore, a place where the line between story and reality has become hopelessly terrifyingly blurred.
spk_0
So if you ever find yourself on the winding roads of Stovre Mont,
spk_0
maybe take a drive down Covered Bridge Road.
spk_0
See the historic How Trust For Yourself.
spk_0
And if it's after midnight, you might want to roll up your windows and be sure to lock your doors.
spk_0
Because there's something waiting on a Covered Bridge in Stovre Mont.
spk_0
What that something is?
spk_0
Well, that's up to your imagination.
spk_0
I'm Christopher Feinstein.
spk_0
And this is haunted American history.
spk_0
I would like to give a shout to the newest member of the Patreon.
spk_0
A man who calls himself Carl Winslow.
spk_0
That's not a fake name at all.
spk_0
Walt Carl, if it is your real name, you must have had a hell of a high school experience.
spk_0
Oh, no, maybe not.
spk_0
If you were my age probably, but if you're younger or older, probably just breeze through.
spk_0
Anywho, welcome.
spk_0
If you'd like to join the Patreon Patreon.com slash one to the American history.
spk_0
We have ad-free episodes, early releases, and my eternal gratitude.
spk_0
Thank you all so much.
spk_0
Love you guys, Patreon members of the Heart and Soul this show.
spk_0
And, uh, yeah.
spk_0
Alright, folks.
spk_0
Until next time.
spk_0
Later.