Ocean-Born Mary House: Digging Up the Truth on New Hampshire's Pirate Ghost Legend

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In the mid twentieth century, a man bought a quiet New Hampshire home and convinced the entire world that it was haunted. But the story didn't begin with ghosts. It began with a baby born at sea. Hello and welcome to Citegeist. I'm your host, Joshua Spellman.

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Today, we're sailing from the sordid shores of the Isles Of Shoals to Henniker, New Hampshire to learn about a ghost story that has captured New England's imagination for centuries. With a haunted house that first unlocked Lorraine Warren's psychic powers, this house surely must be haunted. Right? Right? The story of ocean born Mary and captain Philip Babb or better known by his seafaring name, Pedra the pirate, is buried in as much legend and lies as the pirate's treasure is dirt.

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When I was first researching this episode, I conceded that this was the one case where the legend was more interesting than the truth. But oh, boy, was I wrong. As I follow the legend's evolution from fact to fiction to a fabricated tourist trap with connections to the likes of Sybil Leake and the apparent origin story of none other than Lorraine Warren, I knew that I was in for a treat and you are too. So put on that life jacket and take your Dramamine because we're headed out to sea to learn the alleged history of Ocean Born Mary. In the year 1721, a group of immigrants were sailing aboard the Wolf from Londonderry, Ireland to make new lives for themselves in America.

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Late at night on July 28, as the ship's journey was nearing its end and approaching the Massachusetts coast, A shot was fired from a nearby vessel. Those aboard the Wolf had little time to react as the ship was overtaken by force. Pirates led by captain Philip Babb or as he was known on the high seas as Don Pedro, began ransacking the immigrant ship, stealing goods and having their way with those on board. The passengers looked helplessly on in fear as Babb himself climbed aboard. He was a fierce and frightening figure.

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He was rugged with leathery skin that was darkened by years on the high seas. His ruddy face was partially hidden by a long black beard. He shouted orders to his men as he made his way below deck brandishing his pistol. As he made his way through the lower decks, he heard a sound, a cooing? Rounding a corner, he came across a woman, Elizabeth Fulton, who was laying on the ground, sweat on her brow and covered in blankets.

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The captain noticed something stirring beneath the blankets and as he ripped them away, he revealed a newborn babe. Elizabeth explained through heavy breath that due to the stress and the fear of the pirate attack, she had prematurely given birth only moments prior. Bab's gruff and fearsome demeanor fell for a moment as he snatched the babe from Elizabeth. What's her name? He asked her.

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She hasn't won, Elizabeth said with a thick Scottish rogue. I tell you what, Bab told the woman. If you allow me to christen and name this babe, I will let the ship and its passengers go free. Without hesitation, Elizabeth agreed, fervently nodding through tears. Holding the newborn babe in his arms, Bab exclaimed, I christen you Mary for my mother and kissed her on the forehead.

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As you were born on the salty sea, you shall be known henceforth as ocean born Mary. May you live a long and prosperous life. Thank you for not allowing me to add another sin to my exhaustive list this night. He handed the infant back to the mother with a fleeting moment of hesitation as if he were thinking of keeping the girl for himself. Captain Babb and his men gathered and returned to their ship, seeming to hold true to their promise.

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However, only moments later, Captain Babb and his men came bounding back aboard the wolf. Gifts, Captain Babb shouted, for ocean born Mary. He presented jewels in a bolt of pale green brocade silk, fabric to use for her wedding dress, he said handing it to Elizabeth. May our paths cross again. And with that, Bab and his men boarded his ship and sailed back off into the night.

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The short remainder of the wolf's journey was uneventful. It docked in Salem and Elizabeth, her husband, and ocean born Mary made their way to the small settlement of Londonderry, New Hampshire to begin their new life. Sadly, Elizabeth's husband had passed away shortly after their arrival, but she soon remarried. Ocean born Mary grew into a beautiful woman over six feet tall with flaming auburn hair, pale freckled skin, and striking green eyes. In 1743, she married her husband, Thomas j Wallace, and as promised, wore a gown made from the brocade silk.

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Mary had four boys who, like their mother, were unusually tall and ginger haired. Like her mother, Mary soon became a widow, leaving her and her children to fend for themselves. However, as luck would have it, not far away in the town of Henniker, captain Babb, who was now old and had long since given up his life of pillaging, had built a house in the mountainside. It was a stately home with nautical details exquisite craftsmanship. It was a striking oxide red with white trim and a little green door.

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It was soon after her husband's death when Mary received word from captain Babb inviting her to come live inside of his home to raise her children and care for him in his old age. With no prospects, Mary agreed and was quickly on her way to Henniker. Mary and her children lived peacefully in the home with the retired pirate for many years. One evening, after a trip on the ocean, the captain came home with a large wooden chest. Later that night, one of his old crew members came back to the home and together they took the chest outside.

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Though they were far in the orchard, Mary could hear the sound of metal on dirt as the men buried the treasure. Then the sound was interrupted by a loud thud, a groan, and then silence before the sound of shovel on dirt began again. The captain returned home that night alone. He thought no one had seen him, but Mary had watched him return from her bedroom window, but she never said a word. About a year later, returning home from the market, Mary found the body of captain Philip Babb or Don Pedro laying in the orchard.

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He had been brutally stabbed by one of his former shipmates who was no doubt seeking his buried treasure. With the help of her sons, she brought the body into the home. Following the captain's last wishes, which he had recited to Mary years prior, the family got to work by candlelight. They removed the heavy three foot stone from the base of the hearth, dug out a small spot, and placed the captain's body inside, and then they sealed it. His body remains there to this day.

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Anyone who has ever tried to remove the stone has died a tragic death soon after. Mary lived in the house until her death on 02/14/1814 at the age of 94. The home is still haunted by Mary, the captain and perhaps even the man the captain murdered. They're all seeking the treasure even in death. On certain nights, especially on Halloween, a ghostly horse drawn carriage can be seen arriving to the house.

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Out of it, steps a tall red haired woman in a white gown. She's seen walking to the well and peering down inside it before she disappears. Is this Mary looking for the lost treasure? Owners of the house have heard pounding on the front door on numerous occasions and when they open it, no one's there. Once they open the door to find a bloody boot print on the stoop, another time, the door flew open of its own accord and when the owner went to investigate, again, there was nothing there because whatever was outside was now inside.

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A shadowy figure could be seen darting from room to room and up the stairs. Could this be another spirit seeking the buried gold? The site of the ocean Born Mary House in Henniker continues to produce sighting after sighting. Some of the most famous names in paranormal research and the occult have had the honor to stand within its walls. In fact, it's the site where Lorraine Warren's psychic powers first manifested and the infamous English witch, the mother of modern witchcraft herself, Sybil Leek, conducted a seance and channeled the spirits that live at Henniker House.

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Hunts for the captain's treasure continue to this day. The pirate's curse holds true leading anyone who has attempted to remove the stone to die a horrible death. On Halloween night, people still try to steal a glimpse of Ocean born Mary coming out of her ghostly carriage. Ocean born Mary was born at sea, died on land, and was anchored to the Hennaker House. And if the legend is true, she will never be free until the captain's treasure is finally found.

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I'm tempted to immediately dive into the parts of the story I find the most interesting, namely the Lorraine Warren and Sibelik of it all. But we need to work our way up there. A little bit of archival foreplay if you will, but stick with me. Trust me. It's worth it.

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As you can already guess based on the story time portion, this is an awfully tall tale as most maritime legends often tend to be, you know, big fish and all that. I got a good deal of help for this episode by reading Jeremy De Etramont's book, Ocean The Truth Behind the New Hampshire Legend, which helped nail down the actual history of Mary's life. I suppose the easiest thing to do is to tell the truth and then follow the story's evolution from a humble, fully truthful tale to an incredible legend about a haunted house that Mary never even lived in. Yeah. You heard that right, but we'll get there.

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Despite the legend naming the emigrant ship as the wolf, no records actually support that. In fact, we don't know the exact ship Mary arrived on. The ship's name, captain, arrival, and departure details are completely missing from official records. What we do have are records of several Irish immigrant ships arriving in New England in the summer of seventeen twenty. Two were reported as being taken over by pirates which narrows it down.

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But through confusing newspaper accounts, it was later revealed that these two ships were actually the same vessel, the Essex. The Essex voyage was a treacherous sixty seven day journey across the Atlantic. The crossing was marked by storms, false reports of its sinking, and finally, a pirate attack. Based on newspaper articles, court records, and history books, the pirates boarding of the Essex took place on 07/17/1720. Now if you recall, Mary's birthday was July 28.

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That's eleven days later. She couldn't have possibly been born during the pirate attack. Right? Well, no records of her birth date actually exist. Citizens of Londonderry celebrated her birthday on July 28 as kind of a local holiday.

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However, in her son William Wallace's ledger on the day she died, he wrote, my honored mother departed this life at 06:00 in the evening, aged ninety three years, six months, and twenty seven days. If you subtract those numbers from the day she died, 02/13/1814, you would actually arrive at 07/17/1720. Now that discrepancy exists because England and the American colonies were still using the Julian calendar at the time of Mary's birth. When they adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, they dropped and yeah. You guessed it already, eleven days from the calendar.

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It seems that those days at some point were retroactively added to Mary's birthday to kind of convert it. So, yeah, it's entirely plausible that Mary was born during or just before the pirate raid. However, the case isn't watertight, but the Essex is by far the strongest candidate for the emigrant ship. Now this leads us to the pirate. Who was he?

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He was certainly not captain Philip Babb because Philip Babb was not a captain. Neither Philip Babb the first who the pirate is supposed to be nor his son were seafaring men. And they're not the pirate if only for the fact that Philip Babb the first would have had to been 101 years old at the time of the attack, which doesn't sound too fearsome to me. Philip Babb actually has his own ghost story and is said to haunt Appledore Island in the Isles Of Shoals and those ghost stories are likely bunked too. They were popularized by the author Celia Thaxter in her 1873 book Among the Isle Of Shoals.

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But this legend actually had its place in New England folktale for quite some time and there was even a version of the Philip Babb ghost story penned by none other than Nathaniel Hawthorne. How did Philip Babb get mixed into the story? We'll get to that later. Contemporary accounts of the Essex siege by pirates provide the name Captain Roberts. Captain Roberts, though referred to as Thomas Roberts in some of the accounts, was none other than Bartholomew Roberts, a Welsh born pirate who became the most successful pirate of the golden age of pirating.

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He actually captured more ships than Blackbeard and Captain Kidd combined, though he wouldn't earn his fun pirate name Black Bart until well after his death. Born John Roberts, he spent twenty four years as a merchant sailor before being forced into piracy under captain Howell Davis. When captain Davis was killed just six weeks after, Roberts was elected the new pirate captain. This was reportedly because he was more intelligent and charismatic than even the seasoned pirates aboard the ship. Fake it till you make it, I guess.

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The ocean born Mary story claims the pirate named Mary after his mother, his wife, his sister, or the Virgin Mary. Now while we know that Bartholomew's father's name was George, his mother's name is unknown. Roberts also doesn't appear to have ever been married. In fact, descriptions of Roberts makes him seem like he liked the trolley song a lot, a friend of Dorothy, if you will. At least one historian thinks so.

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He was described as tall, large, and tan. He preferred tea over alcohol and liked to dress in brightly colored gentleman's clothes. His favorite outfit was said to be a scarlet red waistcoat with matching trousers and a hat with a red feather in it that he wore slightly cocked to the side and a heavy old chain. It sounds very flamboyant to say the least. It was suggested that Roberts didn't enjoy violence and he preferred to operate under the pretense of intimidation.

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Though, don't get it wrong, he was still a pirate and was known to resort to torture and murder to get what he wanted. However, it should also be noted that Robert sometimes rewarded compliant ship captains with gifts including jewelry And this little tidbit seems to reinforce the part of the story where Mary's mother was gifted Brocade's silk. However, we can't say with certainty that Roberts is our guy because to complicate things further, it turns out that the Essex was actually boarded by two pirate ships at the same time led by two different captains. Not much is known about the other ship that joined in on the action other than the fact that it was a French ship. It's speculated that the second ship was led by captain LaPolice and that LaPolice was the one that threatened the immigrants on board.

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Well, Roberts convinced him and the other crew members to let them go free using the baby as an excuse. The thing is, even if captain Roberts was our guy, he certainly did not build the Henniker house as he was killed off the coast of Africa in 1722 and buried at sea. But enough about the pirate, we'll get back to him in a little bit. What about Mary and her life? Mary was born to Elizabeth Fulton Wilson and James Wilson who married each other in Ireland in 1719.

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They were Ulster Scots or Scots Irish who are Scottish people who settled in the Ulster province of Ireland which provides an explanation on why some stories say that Ocean born Mary is Irish and others say that she's Scottish, which seems to be a pattern on this show. A lot of confusion between Irish and Scottish. Just like the story, after arriving in Boston in 1720, Mary's father died and Elizabeth and Mary settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire where Elizabeth quickly remarried to a man named Deacon James Clark. Elizabeth then had five more children before dying young in 1732. Mary grew up and married a man by the name of James Wallace who was described as a man of large hospitality, a genial man, a generous man.

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He was known for his green thumb being one of the first to cultivate fruit in the area and was known as a grower of rare flowers. Of his fruits, it was said, nothing was better known or appreciated than the flavor of his apples, plums, and pears, which now that I'm reading it out loud, it sounds a lot like a choice of on lyric. Ah. Not much more to say about that. Anyway, Mary and James were married in Londonderry.

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The legend says that Mary wore a wedding gown made from the silk gifted by the pirate captain. Some records actually suggest that Mary wore the gown her mother wore in her marriage to deacon James Clark and that that gown was also passed down to Mary's granddaughter and her great granddaughter. This is possibly where the rumor that this was made from the pirate silk came from, but fragments of this gown are actually on display or in the collections of several New England institutions, and Mary's descendants also own pieces of this famous garment. And the amazing thing about it is with all these fragments existing in all these different places, they all match one another. So they came from the same garment.

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And this is interesting because a pair of stockings Mary knit for her son's wedding were passed down and worn in the family weddings until the nineteen sixties. So it's very possible that these fragments are from Mary's wedding dress as this seems to be a tradition in their family to pass these things down. But it's impossible to know whether or not this came from a pirate. The legend goes on to say that Mary and James had four boys which is not accurate. Mary went on to have four sons and four daughters though only one of the daughters survived into adulthood.

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Their sons were Thomas the oldest followed by Robert Wallace the most famous and then William and James. Their daughter's name was Elizabeth after Mary's mother. Three of Mary's sons married three sisters and they all moved together to Henniker, New Hampshire. Robert Walls' house is the house that came to be known as the Ocean Born Mary House even though Mary never lived there. It's a stately Georgian home built between 1784 and 1786.

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William, one of Mary's other sons who she did live with until she died, built his house just a little over a mile away from the Oceanborne Mary house. Now it's important to note that William was incredibly tall standing at six foot four, which corroborates the fact that Mary was very tall herself as it's made it into the legend. And though no official record of her height exists, I mean, why would they? We don't even know exactly when she was born. Historic records do describe her as being symmetrically tall and quite tall.

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But it seems that she was likely no taller than anyone else in the family and that William was an extreme outlier. Robert Wallace actually said of the high ceilings in the ocean born Mary house, my brother William is very tall, and as I want him to visit me, I have the rooms made high. Also, unlike the legend legend says, Mary's husband did not die when she was young or shortly after their marriage. James Wallace died at the age of 79 on 10/30/1791 after they were married for forty nine years. This meant that when her husband died, Mary was 71 years old and certainly not a young single mother with four young boys to raise in a house built by a pirate.

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And Far From It and like I've already said several times, Mary never even lived in the ocean born Mary house nor did she die in it. She instead lived with William, the tall one, who became her caretaker. She moved in with him in 1798 as noted in his day book and the census records for eighteen hundred and eighteen ten confirm it. This is the house that she died in, and unfortunately, the house is no longer standing. So where does the rest of this legend come from?

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How did it get so far from the truth? You know, this is older than most stories that I do tend to cover on this podcast. So while I initially thought this was a standard case of historic telephone, and due to its age, it changed a lot more than we would expect, that's not really the case. The story was more or less the same for a hundred to a hundred and fifty years, but things got really crazy in the twentieth century. And I mean, really crazy.

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The first written account of the Ocean Born Mary story was published in 1849, over a hundred years since the story occurred and nearly sixty years after Mary's death. This story appeared in the 02/24/1849 issue of the Portsmouth Journal where a relative of Mary was said to give the account. It hits all the beats. Emigrate ship attacked by pirates, Elizabeth Fulton giving birth prematurely, naming the girl Mary at the request of the pirates, the pirate gives gifts, etcetera, etcetera. This story is where we first get the famed ocean born Mary quote.

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I was born neither on this side nor that side o the water nor anywhere else on God's green earth, which is what Mary allegedly always said when people asked where she was from. An account only three years later adds the details of the silk dress. It was said to be a dress in this account and not fabric, which I find interesting as that often seems to oscillate between tellings. Most of the details of the story remain fairly consistent throughout the nineteenth century. However, in 1899, an article was published that had an illustration of Robert Wallace's house saying house where ocean Mary died and other ephemera like postcards from that same era also bear pictures of the house with similar captions.

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And this idea seemed to persist from this point forward. It was in 1939 after the publication of Lois Linsky's children's book, Ocean Born Mary, that we get the name Philip Babb for the pirate captain. And it seems she did so simply because she liked the sound of it after reading about his ghost in Appledore. To Lois's credit though, she never claimed that the book was historical fiction and she was simply inspired by the name of Ocean Mary and in fact other than that she was born at sea, not much of the book actually resembles Mary and her life at all. By the nineteen forties, insane details seem to be commonplace about Ocean Mary and Henniker House, including buried treasure on the land, sightings of a ghostly horse drawn carriage, and the stories about the captain's body being buried beneath the hearth.

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How did the story go from relatively true and tame to spiraling out of control so fast? Enter Gussie Roy. Born Louis Maurice August Roy on 06/23/1883 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Gussie Roy was many things in his life. Artist, photographer, antiquarian, and expert on colonial handicrafts. But mainly, he was an eccentric.

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His father was a physician and died along with his sister when Gussie was very young and he was raised by his mother, Flora, a New Hampshire native who relocated them to Wisconsin in the early nineteen hundreds. Here, Gussie got his first job working at the town's YMCA as a fitness instructor and by 1910, Gussie had reinvented himself as a photographer. He achieved moderate success in this venture and he won three medals for his work in 1913 alone. In addition to being a photographer, Roy often wrote articles for photographic, antique, and handicraft publications. In 1916, Gussie Roy was looking for a new home for him and his mother to live in.

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He wanted something old, something with character, where, like, a modern day home improvement DIY YouTuber where he could put his antiques knowledge to good use and restore it. Roy contacted the Henniker postmaster inquiring if there were any interesting old buildings available in Henniker to buy. The postmaster was actually going to throw out his letter but as luck would have it, Marion Conner saw the note and asked if she could answer it. Marion replied to Roy's letter and told him about the old Robert Wallace house. Roy bought the house within two weeks of receiving his reply.

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Gussy Roy would later claim that he could feel the spirit of ocean born Mary reaching out to him because she had personally chosen him to buy her house and restore it for her. And this is where it all began. Before we dive too much into the legend, let's get a better idea of the man behind the myth. Gussie Roy was often described as a short man possessing an elvish charm with striking bright blue eyes, a round face, and an engaging smile. But he was also an oddball and an attention seeker.

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He was always willing to perform as shown in photographs taken later in his old age of him doing handstands. He allegedly never stopped doing the fitness routines he was taught as a teenager at the YMCA. Despite his father being a doctor, Gussie Roy had a distrust of modern medicine. When he was 78 years old, he told an interviewer that the last time he took medicine was in 1898 at the age of 15. He didn't drink alcohol, coffee, or tea, or even milk.

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But at the same time, it turns out he did drink tea, herbal tea, so perhaps it doesn't count. It's kinda like the Mormons and their crazy beverages. You know, it's not caffeine for some reason when it's just sugar free syrup. Anyways, one of his favorite beverages was red clover blossom tea or as a little treat, he would have a cup of hot cocoa with honey. Now allegedly, Gussie Roy never took a bath in water, at least.

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An article published after his death said that he would, however, sit in a bathtub filled with popcorn, which was one of his favorite snacks. And this little tidbit may not be true, but it certainly conjures up quite an image. But perhaps not much of an image as of how Gussie Roy actually bathed, not in popcorn nor in water, but in the sun, daily, nude. Even as he was old, after he sold the Ocean Born Mary house to a friend, he still lived there for quite some time and continued this daily tradition even when the new owner's wife had company over. So I think that gives us a pretty good idea of who Gussie Roy was and, you know, little things he got up to.

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I think this can probably set the scene of what we can begin to expect from Gussie Roy. He was a charmer who had a way of winning people over and he had a flair for the unusual and the dramatic. He was peculiar to say the least. He lived alone in the Ocean Born Mary house with his mother Flora until she died and I think it's safe to say Flora is probably where he got his, uniqueness from. However, the charisma, nerve, and talent though, I can say was all his own.

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Flora and Gussie quickly moved from Wisconsin to New Hampshire to begin working on their new venture. With Roy's antiquarian knowledge, they began filling the house with period furniture and antiques, which they would later claim actually belonged personally to Ocean Mary herself. After the Holmes restoration, by the mid nineteen twenties, Gussie Roy's lifelong career of media mayhem had begun. The Boston Post featured the Ocean born Mary house in a massive four page spread in November 1925. And in 1927, the Associated Press wrote a story with the headline ghostly stage dries up to haunted place.

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According to the Associated Press article, a ghostly stagecoach was frequently seen approaching the Ocean Born Mary house, and inside of it sat a tall woman in white. She would step down from the carriage, walk across the yard, and over to the old well. This element of the story is undoubtedly inspired by Scottish, Irish, or just Gaelic fairy lore in general. Some said that this ghostly woman was ocean born Mary searching for something lost, perhaps pirate's treasure. Others said this wasn't ocean born Mary at all, but that the woman was a murderess.

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Her guilt causing her to return to the site where she had disposed of her victim's body again and again. By the late nineteen twenties, the house was no longer merely historic. It was haunted. And at this point, a crucial addition was made to the narrative. The pirate captain from Mary's origin story had not vanished from her life after her birth.

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Instead, he had retired from piracy, built the house himself, and invited Mary to live with him, and then buried his treasure somewhere on the property. Flora and Gussie began charging nominal fees to give tours of the property. These started out tame and even a little bit restrained. But once the great depression hit, the tales had to grow taller to bring the tourists in and convince them to spend their money. Around this time, the pirate treasure angle exploded.

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In the depths of the great depression, the idea of unimaginable wealth hiding just beneath the soil was irresistible and Roy began renting shovels to visitors for 50¢ so they could dig for gold in the orchard. Roy repeatedly told newspapers that a film was gonna be made in the house and in May 1930, articles claiming filming would begin in that summer, but no film was ever shot. Another paper reported that Roy had received several offers from major motion picture companies, but he was unsure if he wanted to permit them to film at the site. This was likely all fluff to draw more attention to the house, but also probably casting a lure to get actual offers from studios. In the fall of nineteen thirty, beautiful full page illustrator articles were published nationwide with the title hunting pirate treasure in New England's mystery house which included even more new additions and tweaks to Mary's story and many claims that the house was not only haunted but a gateway to the unknown.

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Lots of lore comes from this particular article. Surprisingly, this article does acknowledge that the house belonged to Oceanborne Mary's son, Robert Wallace, and even provides an accurate birth date for Mary, but that's where the facts end. This article claims that on the one year anniversary of Mary's death, which would have been 02/14/1815, which by the way is wrong. They really leaned into the Valentine's Day date at this point in time, but I digress. It would have been the exact time of Mary's death.

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A guard had told Robert Wallace that he saw a woman in white hovering above the gateway to the property. The very next day, Robert Wallace was killed immediately when he tried to get his horse to cross the threshold where the apparition was spotted. Yes. So Robert Wallace was killed by falling off a horse and this did happen about a year after his mother's death. Almost.

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He died on 01/31/1815, so just shy of the anniversary. The stagecoach story gets a spotlight here as well saying that twenty five years prior, three men, two of whom were public officials because they really wanted you to know this is a legitimate story, saw the Ghosse stagecoach approach the house and the woman in white leapt from it and disappeared into the apple orchard. The next day, the three men went to go investigate the well and found it odd that there was rust at the bottom while no other well on the property showed signs of it. They assumed that metallic treasure must lie at the bottom and so they tried climbing down the well but the walls were old and they crumbled and all three were badly injured. In this article, Gussie Roy also recanted his ghostly encounters.

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One of note was that when Gussie Roy first moved into the house, he was awoken in the dead of night by someone trying to get in the front door. When he came downstairs, the door opened on its own and a shadow person could be seen running through the dark. The house was then left in shambles And something tells me, call it a hunch, that this was likely an actual home invader, but who am I to take away the elf's whimsy? The article goes on to say that the Roy's have nothing to sell and do not incline towards sensationalism. Sure, Jan.

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Subconsciously, I don't think the article's author believed this either as the very next paragraph dives into telling about how Gussie Roy thought he may have found a hidden passage with treasure in his basement possibly leading to the old well, and how this story was now in all the newspapers and had people flocking from all over the country to see the treasure uncovered. But, of course, nothing ever came of it. It sounds a little inclined towards sensationalism to me, but who who am I? I am just I'm just a boy. At this point, the Roy's appeared to be promoting the house as haunted full time, and newspapers, which were desperate for interesting stories, were biting, and so were the tourists.

[00:34:07] - [Speaker 0]
Newspapers reported that cars lined the street and the house guest book recorded over 100 visitors on a single day on 07/05/1930. By this time, it was reported that the property had been dug up for miles by tourists seeking riches, but still no treasure was ever found. And here in this picture, can see Flora looking all innocent and sweet knitting away while watching people hunt for treasure on the property. Notably, all the years that they lived in that house, Flora was the only one who claimed to ever see Mary. Many of the stories also revolved around Flora in some way or another.

[00:34:45] - [Speaker 0]
Gussie Roy, to his credit, says he never saw Mary's ghost but that he could simply sense her presence. I don't know the family dynamic here, but it seems familiar. It feels like a pageant mom in a way. It feels like Flora knew her little boy, Gussy, was a charming man that people would listen to, and she was using him as a vessel to live out her fantasies and get attention. He was clearly a mama's boy.

[00:35:10] - [Speaker 0]
You know, they lived together in this house until she died. It feels almost like, I don't know, a Claudine Blanchard situation, you know, minus all the horrific abuse and murder. But that's all my conjecture. Do not take that as any kind of fact. I just find the Flora and Gusy Roy dynamic really interesting and yeah, there's there's something there.

[00:35:30] - [Speaker 0]
I don't know. It's very Bates Hotel. I I digress. Now despite over years no treasure being found in the orchard or in the well or in the basement, in 1934, an article titled Pirate Loot Guarded by Ghosts in Old Mansion was published saying that the Roy's found a tin box in the attic that they conveniently overlooked for the first eighteen years of living there, which contained, and I quote, decayed papers mentioning hidden wealth, jewels, doubloons, and pieces of eight. It was said that this note was written by ocean born Mary herself and this is what got Gussie Roy interested in learning her true story.

[00:36:10] - [Speaker 0]
Now in this article, her true story naturally differs in every other version of her true story. In this version, the pirate had actually secretly stayed in contact with Mary for her entire life, sending her unmarked packages with treasures and riches inside. He did this before eventually inviting her and her children and her husband to live with him in his house because apparently in this timeline, Mary's husband survived, so good for him. By summer of nineteen thirty five, Wallace Mack, a descendant of Mary Wallace, presented the Roy's with one of the famed pieces of silk from Mary's dress, which they framed for display. The return of the silk was said to stir Mary's presence.

[00:36:52] - [Speaker 0]
They had mediums come there on Mary's birthday to channel her, but the only thing that came through was a big black bearded pirate who to the mediums said that there was buried treasure on the land. In 1937, a story in the telegraph noted that a medium from Lawrence, Massachusetts has pointed out the exact spot where a chest of treasure was hidden and that Gussie Roy had planned to start digging as soon as he could find enough tourists to help. Then in October 1937, psychic Dana Brown walked the property with dowsing rods. Now Brown did not find the treasure, but apparently, he had found Frank Gay's old watch buried in eight inches of mud. So hopefully, Frank was happy.

[00:37:36] - [Speaker 0]
Brown had searched for a total of six hours and whenever the dowsing rods pointed downward, people would scramble to dig in the dirt. And the only things that they found were scrap metal, a horseshoe, an iron kettle, and other little bits and bobs. Despite all of these unsuccessful hunts, the treasure madness continued. At one point, it was even said that $7,000,000 worth of gold was buried on the property. More and more journalists and authors visited the house to interview the Roy's and hear their tales.

[00:38:08] - [Speaker 0]
Flora was always charming and her old age and sincere belief seemed to really sway people. And meanwhile, Gussie Roy had such a knack for making things up about the house that it was actually quite impressive like how one day they found a boarded up staircase in the house and he had a peculiar feeling that ocean born Mary had died from falling down the narrow steps and that in shame they boarded it up after forever hiding it. Sure. Why not? While most coverage was in local newspapers, tabloids, or ghost centric media, even the National Geographic, a reputable publication wrote an article for their April 1939 issue.

[00:38:51] - [Speaker 0]
It was in this issue that the story of the nineteen thirty eight hurricane came to be where Flora said she saw a tall woman with skirts whipping wildly watching her son from a distance as he tried to secure the house for the hurricane. Afterward, a large tree fell and just missed the house clearly protected by the spirit of ocean born Mary. However, later tellings of the story changed which is no surprise and Flora didn't just see Mary from a distance watching her son know. She saw him hovering over Gussie with her arms outstretched shielding him from flying debris. In 1945, Gussie Roy also wrote his own book called Ocean A Romance and that can still be found in the Hennaker Historical Society.

[00:39:37] - [Speaker 0]
This book was never published and I can think of a couple of reasons why. The 21 page manuscript is very convoluted, but it's the document that first introduces Pedro the pirate. To his credit, Gussie Roy said that the names were fictitious. But still, Captain Pedro and Don Pedro became staples of the story and told as truth. This romance novel, novel, it's 21 pages, also fleshes out the part of the story that we know of with the buried treasure and Mary witnessing it and finding him stabbed in the yard.

[00:40:09] - [Speaker 0]
Before this, I think this was probably just something that Gussie Roy told on tours. When Edward Rose Snow visited the house in 1946, Gussie Roy likely trying to impress him since he knew that Snow was an expert in pirates spun yet another new yarn in the tale. The pirate was actually captain Kidd, not Philip Babb and not Don Pedro. Now this is despite the fact that captain Kidd was hung in seventeen o one, which Snow was quick to point out to Gussie noting that it would be really crazy for him to be robbing a pirate ship nineteen years after his death, let alone building a house. Snow wrote in his book Supernatural Mysteries and Other Tales that he along with the help of a few others lifted the hearthstone in the kitchen where the captain's body was allegedly said to remain.

[00:40:59] - [Speaker 0]
There was nothing underneath. Though some witnesses later said that there was actually a skeleton, which Snow adamantly denied. Also, fun fact, all the people present at the lifting lived, which goes against what Dussie Roy told visitors in later years that anyone who tried to remove the stone would die an immediate, horrible, and painful death. In 1947, an article was written with new outlandish claims that the pirate captain was Philip Babb who took over for Captain Kidd when he died in seventeen o one. Again, despite the fact that Philip Babb had already been dead for years and lived nowhere near the area.

[00:41:37] - [Speaker 0]
The same author also claimed that after Mary's death, the house sat empty for a hundred years and a woman was actually given a tour of the house by ocean born Mary's ghost before the Roy's bought it. Flora Roy died in 1949. In that same year, demonologists of The Conjuring fame, Ed and Lorraine Warren visited the house. Except at this time, they were barely 20 years old and nothing but tourists coming to the house because they thought it looked like fun, but they left it different people entirely. The Warren said that Lorraine's powers first manifested while Gussie Roy was giving them a tour of the house.

[00:42:14] - [Speaker 0]
Lorraine had an out of body experience hovering over the group. Now, did the home's supernatural energy unlock Lorraine's clairvoyance? Or were the Warrens inspired by Gussie Roy's ability to charm gullible people out of their money with the promise of ghostly treasure? In later years, Lorraine and Ed went on to become the most famous paranormal investigators of the twentieth century, but not without controversy. The Warwins would go on to have some of the most well known paranormal investigations like the Amityville Horror and Annabelle.

[00:42:45] - [Speaker 0]
But most of their cases were built on anecdotal evidence, cherry picked or twisted testimonies, fabricated history, and stories like Ocean Born Marys that shifted over time. Meanwhile, others still insist that they are the pinnacles of paranormal propriety. What cannot be argued though is that Ed and Lorraine Warren, like Gussie Roy before them, knew the power of a good story. How once a tale takes hold in the public imagination, even proof to the contrary couldn't kill it as the Ocean Born Mary House demonstrates. Francis L.

[00:43:18] - [Speaker 0]
Childs, a local Dartmouth professor and expert on Henniker History insisted he had never heard of pirates or ghosts associated with the house before the Roy's arrival. At any chance he could, he would tell people that Gussy Roy was a big fat liar. This clearly got under Gussy Roy's skin because whenever anyone expressed any doubt during a tour about a story that Gussy was telling, he would say, I'd be a lot better off if Francis Childs didn't talk so much. Another staunch critic of the Roy's was Marion Connor. If you remember, this was actually the woman who told Gussy Roy about the house in the first place.

[00:43:57] - [Speaker 0]
She seemed embarrassed of the monster that she created and tried to set the record straight with an article in 1954 where she railed against the Roy's and called their stories quite a body of fanciful literature. But at the same time, she was still willing to commend them for how well they restored the house. Over the years, Gussie never stopped milking the treasure angle, though the press seemed to grow a bit tired of it. In a 1958 article in the Manchester Union Leader titled Stage Search Today for Buried Treasure, the article details how this is yet the second search in just that year alone. And the author of the article seems to grow impatient of Gussie's antics saying, Roy is of the opinion that a pirate's chest of pieces of eight in doubloons is hidden somewhere around the vicinity.

[00:44:49] - [Speaker 0]
And in past years, he has tried to discover the ironclad chest of valuables which legend says is buried there in vain. And later says with a palpable sarcasm, this may be the big day of the discovery. As we know, nothing was found. As the years went on, Gussie's tours of the house became more and more unhinged and he was even known to plant experiences like strategically placing a rocking chair on a loose board that he could set to rocking if he stepped on it just right and claimed that Mary's ghost must have just sat in the chair. In his old age, Gussie Roy sold the property to his friend David Russell and he continued to live in the house with the Russells and the Russells even allowed Roy to continue to give tours for a time.

[00:45:35] - [Speaker 0]
In his 1966 book Yankee Ghosts, Hans Holzer, a paranormal investigator and writer tells of his investigation at the Hennaker House. Wanting an outsider with no prior knowledge of the home, he invited Sybil Leak, careful not to let Leak know of the legends, names, or the supposed history. Sybil Leik arrived in prime witchy fashion just as one would expect her to, carrying a wicker basket containing her pet boa constrictor, mister Sasha, which was one of her familiars. Sibyl Leak probably deserves an entire episode in her own right, but to say the least, she was not your average psychic or occult figure because that is selling her short. She was the occult figure.

[00:46:20] - [Speaker 0]
Leake was a British psychic, astrologer, and author of more than 60 books, and Leake is often described as the mother of modern witchcraft. She traced her ancestry back to a woman accused of craft in the sixteenth century and the likes of h g Wells and Alistair Crowley were among those in her personal orbit. Leake became a familiar presence on British television long before she relocated to The United States. She was a big deal and was known for her trance work. When asked of her first impressions of the property, Leake said they were strongest outside the house, specifically near the irises saying, there is something outside this house which means more than things inside.

[00:47:01] - [Speaker 0]
Could this be the treasure? The seance itself took place inside in broad daylight with many witnesses present. Holzer recorded the entire seance in his book but I will be paraphrasing. Once in trance, Sibal Leak did not speak as ocean born Mary as one would expect but as a figure calling herself Mary Deegan, a servant who lived in the house. Speaking in a Cockney accent, the voice described sailors, hidden riches, and a man named Johnny who was involved in funny business at sea and his body was said to be buried under the fireplace.

[00:47:37] - [Speaker 0]
She told those gathered that a rock formation resembling a lion's head was on the property where Dutch gold was supposedly buried. Though Holzer said that he did not tell Sybil Leek anything about the house before her visit, that didn't stop him from probing her with leading questions during the seance. While Sybil first identified herself as Mary Deegan and then later as Mary Birch, Holzer asked, what about Mary Wallace? And Sybil replied, Mary Wallace was Mary Birch. She had several names.

[00:48:09] - [Speaker 0]
In fact, only because of Holzer's prodding were many familiar locations brought up like the well and the secret passageways. To her credit though, Sybil mentioned the body beneath the hearth all on her own. After the seance, the group followed Sybil outside to test her claims. She was given no direction beyond letting her intuition guide her through the grounds and within minutes she led them about 20 yards from the house to a small cluster of irises. And here was a stone that when viewed at a distance resembled a lion's head.

[00:48:42] - [Speaker 0]
Now it's likely she spotted this along with the irises when she first entered the house and probably saw the stone from a distance then or when she was looking outside of the windows and she thought it would be something interesting to incorporate into her reading. The Russells who at the time owned the house later promised to examine both the garden and the hearthstone with a metal detector. Though, again, no surprise, nothing was ever found. To believers, the seance was astonishing. You know, a medium with no prior knowledge speaking immediately of pirates, a woman named Mary with four children, treasure, and buried bodies.

[00:49:21] - [Speaker 0]
And to them, this is indisputable despite that all of those facts were wrong. To skeptics, this was evidence of the power of suggestion leading questions and the fact that the legend of Ocean Born Mary was well known. Even if Sybil only knew the vague outlines of the story, this is probably what she repeated, hence, all the wrong details but the right general idea. Either way, Sybil Leaks visit added yet another layer of credibility to a legend that has already spiraled far out of control. Gussie never got to see this story published as he died in a New Hampshire nursing home on 09/06/1965.

[00:50:03] - [Speaker 0]
A friend visited him shortly before his death where he was quoted as saying, life is very sad. All my treasures have been taken over by strangers. My life is a failure. Now I'll never finish all I tried to do. Gussie Roy had a list of over 600 names to invite to his funeral.

[00:50:22] - [Speaker 0]
Only 20 people came. As requested, Gussie was buried next to his mother in a small plot across the street from the Ocean Born Mary House. Later, it was revealed that on his deathbed, Gussie Roy confessed to a friend that he knew all the while that Mary Wallace had never really lived in his house and that she did not haunt it. All the haunting stopped after Gussie Roy died and that's because there never were any at least by Mary Wallace. But even so, subsequent owners never reported any ghostly activity or happenings.

[00:50:55] - [Speaker 0]
It's easy to scoff at Gussie Roy's eccentricities, exaggerations, and straight up fabrications, but storytelling has power. And I sound like a broken record, and I've said it time and time again on this podcast, storytelling is one of humankind's greatest gifts. Roy was not necessarily a villain, at least not really. He never really hurt anyone or truly profited from his yarn spinnings. He was just a quirky little man with a huge imagination.

[00:51:25] - [Speaker 0]
And in the end, Gussie Roy or anyone never found pirate gold. He died all alone. But what he's left behind is a great story that people wanted to believe and couldn't stop telling. I'm telling it right now. And Gussie Roy, whether he intended it or not, has become an inseparable part of that tale.

[00:51:46] - [Speaker 0]
He spun himself right into the tapestry of Ocean Born Mary with his white lies and flights of fancy. Part of me hopes that if ghosts do exist that Flora and Gussie Roy are causing havoc over there at Henniker House. Who knows? Maybe Gussie's ghost will become a part of the legend for generations to come. If you've made it this far, thank you so much for listening.

[00:52:09] - [Speaker 0]
I know I always ask you to leave a review and if you can, please please do. Literally every little tiny bit helps. If you're listening on Overcast and you enjoyed this episode, if you hit the little star icon, that will recommend this episode to other people who might like it. But more importantly than all those call to actions, if you think a friend may enjoy the show, tell them about it. If you could post this to your Instagram story and tag the podcast, we're on Instagram @citegeistpod, that would be greatly appreciated as well.

[00:52:39] - [Speaker 0]
I just wanna grow our little community of bibliographers. And if you're listening or watching, I should say, on YouTube, if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment. I've been playing around with format a little bit. I generally try and shape the format and storytelling around what the story requires. Sometimes that's making the ghost story portion more like a short story and narrative.

[00:53:01] - [Speaker 0]
Sometimes it's a lot of fake history. And I even know that even the story portion of the podcast, people don't love so much. There's been some criticism that it makes the podcast too long and repetitive. So if you have any ideas, I would love to hear them. But until next time, remember to do your daily handstands keep yourself young and sprightly.

[00:53:22] - [Speaker 0]
Think about selling ghost tours at your own home as a little side hustle because we need to monetize everything. And until next time, I'll see you in the stacks.