Shownotes Transcript
Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. This spring, refresh your spring personal care items and earn four times points on all your favorites when you shop in-store or online.
Earn four times points when you shop for items like Pantene shampoo, Gillette Fusion 5 razors, Secret Body Spray, Always Pads, Love's Diapers, Pepto-Bismol, and Nervive Nerve Relief Cream. Then use your rewards for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends May 20th. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit Safeway.com for more details. So we're standing a short distance away from a burial happening at Vail Inn Cemetery in Wilton, New Hampshire.
Yeah, it's a somber ceremony. There's maybe like, I don't know, a dozen people gathered around the grave, and the priest is saying a few words. But even though neither of us knew the person in the casket, this is still a sad thing to witness, don't you think? Yeah, I do. You know, selfishly, I think it reminds us of our own mortality and...
the mortality of the people we care about. We know that this is our final destination for all of us. For sure, I get that, yeah. So this group of mourners may want to check over their shoulders here at Valen Cemetery. Why's that? Because they say this place is haunted. Haunted? Shh! Sorry, sorry, sorry. Haunted? We've come to Wilton, New Hampshire to search for a ghost known as the Blue Lady of Valen Cemetery. ♪
I'm Ray Osier. Welcome to episode 393 of the New England Legends podcast. And I'm Jeff Belanger. We're glad you're joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. We're always searching for ghosts and monsters, aliens, UFOs, anything else that bumps in the night. And you can contact us anytime through our website with your own story leads because we'd love to check them out. And we'll go searching for the Blue Lady of Vale End Cemetery right after this word from our sponsor.
Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. This spring, refresh your spring personal care items and earn four times points on all your favorites when you shop in-store or online.
Earn four times points when you shop for items like Pantene shampoo, Gillette Fusion 5 razors, Secret Body Spray, Always Pads, Love's Diapers, Pepto-Bismol, and Nervive Nerve Relief Cream. Then use your rewards for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends May 20th. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit Safeway.com for more details.
Jeff, you think every cemetery is haunted? Yeah, maybe not every cemetery, but it sure seems like most of them. Well, like you said earlier, funerals and by default cemeteries remind us of our own mortality and the mortality of our loved ones. Right, and that little bit of fear, maybe it opens us up to subtle things that are around us all the time. But we don't think about it when we're at the grocery store. No, but we think about it here. Right. But this cemetery has a specific ghost.
The Blue Lady. Yeah, that's what they say. Now, I remember way back in the earliest days of our podcast, we covered the White Lady of Union Cemetery in Eastern Connecticut. We did. Yeah, I grew up not too far from there. And then we covered the Green Lady Cemetery in Burlington, Connecticut. Right, right. Now, we covered the Gray Lady in Westford, Massachusetts. Yeah. But I think this is our first Blue Lady. Do you think we'll eventually cover all the crayon colors before we're done? Yeah.
I'm not sure. Maybe. All right. So Wilton, New Hampshire is located in the southern part of the state. It's just a bit east of the town of Milford. And this sign at the cemetery gives us a few more details about Vale End. Looks like the earliest burial here was the year 1752. Then in 1778, the town purchased an additional half acre of land next to the old burial ground and turned it into a proper cemetery for the community.
It was originally named the North Yard Cemetery, but renamed Vale End in 1871. And then it mentions some notable people buried here. One that stands out to me says, quote, John Stiles, an honest, kind, and obliging neighbor, killed trying to stop a runaway colt. What a way to go. Right?
And as we witnessed earlier, there's still modern burials happening here too. Plus, you know, Vale End sounds sort of ominous. Yeah, it kind of does. So Vale is a valley, and this is the end. Vale End does have a horror movie ring to it. It does. Now what do you think is the meaning behind the different colors? White ladies, green ladies, gray ladies, and now blue ladies.
And I can see the emails we're going to get already about like red ladies or purple ladies or any other color. And please do send your emails. We love getting them and it could make a cool future podcast. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Send them anyway, but just saying. So people have signed meeting to colors for as long as there've been color.
Which was 1953, of course, when RCA introduced the first color television. Right, right, yeah. Before that, the world was obviously just black and white. Obviously. So when it comes to people who study auras, blue represents communication, calmness, and inner peace. Well, that sounds nice if you're a ghost. Eh, cool.
Across the esoteric spectrum, blue usually means tranquility and peace, though it can also mean sadness. Like feeling blue. Right. So the white lady meaning maybe more practical. There was a time when women were buried in their finest dresses, which quite often was their wedding dress if they were grown or married, or their first communion dress if the girl tragically died young. So the white we're seeing has more to do with the dress than anything else. That's the idea.
But we need to remember that white wedding dresses didn't come in vogue until like the 1840s. So more modern ghosts. Potentially, but who can be certain how any of this works? You know, once we find a trend or a pattern, there's always an exception to those rules. But here in Vale End, we're looking for a blue lady. That's right. And if you believe the internet... Which we do. Right. Right.
Most people seem to agree that the Blue Lady of Valen Cemetery is connected to a single grave here. Oh, which one? So it's a grave that's broken into an arrow shape pointing upward. It's like a jagged sort of knife blade that's hard to miss. All right, let's look around.
Given how old this boneyard is, no surprise that there's hundreds of graves here. Yeah, almost 800 to be exact. Now, many of the headstones are the traditional headstone shape, though I see plenty of rectangles. There are tombs flat on the ground, some family monuments, and a few obelisks. Yep, yep. This place looks like countless other historic New England cemeteries we've seen before. Is that? No, just a routed top on that grave marker. Yeah. Let's head over this way to some of the older burials.
Okay, what about that one? Ooh, yeah, I think that could be it. Yep, this is the one we're looking for. All right, so this looks like it used to be a rectangle headstone, and the top left and right corners have been broken off to form a point near the middle, almost like an arrowhead. Yeah, yeah. Some words on the top of the epitaph are lost because they broke off, and some of it is kind of hard to read, but let me give it a shot. It says...
Mary Ritter, born 12 January 1773, died 27 April 1808, age 35. Her serenity of temper and gentleness of manners were a charm of a short and peaceful life.
Married 9 April 1795, erected by her children in veneration of their moral, something I can't make out, and in gratitude for their parental worth, 1831. So I guess this stone was erected in 1831. Right. And below that says Mary, second wife of Isaac Spalding, died February 24, 1855, age 75.
Wait, so Isaac Spalding married two women, both named Mary? It looks that way. And both were buried with this headstone? It looks that way. Wow. So considering Isaac Spalding died in 1830, his second wife Mary outlived him and still wound up buried with his first wife, and then Mary, too, was obviously added to the stone after it was erected. Why do people think Mary Ritter, the first wife, is the Blue Lady of Valand Cemetery? So that's the mystery.
Here's a little more background. Mary Ritter was born in Lunenburg, Massachusetts. We believe she often went by the name Polly because that was written on her marriage record. There's a brief mention of her in the 1888 book titled Livermore History of Wilton. It says Mary Ritter was, quote, regarded as a woman of superior intellect, a great worker, and skilled tailoress.
As to why the ghost is her, I would guess has mostly to do with her broken headstone and the young age of her death. Yeah, I could see that. There's dozens of other headstones nearby, but this one sticks out because it's got this jagged and broken top. It commands your attention. Yeah, right. When you add in that Mary died young and then was forced to share her eternal resting place with her replacement. Also named Mary. Right. I guess, you know, maybe that's enough. Yeah, but her epitaph isn't really dark or ominous.
No, no, it's not. We've seen some spooky ones over the years, like I'm Watching and Waiting for You. Now, clearly that grave contains a ghost. Absolutely.
But you're right, Mary Ritter's epitaph is kind of sweet. Which still begs the question, why is she the Blue Lady, and when did that start? So according to some members of the local historical society who grew up in the area, they didn't begin to hear about the Blue Lady until the 1970s. Could that have been near the time her headstone cracked into the shape it's in now? Maybe. Perhaps people saw a blue light in the cemetery, then this particular headstone broke, and the connection was made, even though there may be no connection at all.
Plus, without a lot of details other than the two wives, both named Mary, are buried in the same spot under a headstone broken in two places to form a broken arrow, we're left to speculate on the backstory of this haunting. Could Mary, one, be sad because she never got to see her children grow? Could this accomplished tailor have been buried in some regal blue dress? Or is there something else haunting the Wilton, New Hampshire cemetery known as Veil End?
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People are dying for a legend, literally. Yes. You know what I mean? Like trying to, the guesswork that goes involved with what the ghost is, who she is, why she is the way she is. Yeah. Is amazing. And I think it's all due to people who are just curious about ghosts and hauntings.
making up their own stories, and those stories become legends. Obviously, that's how most legends happen. Sure. Some are based in fact. This one, based in speculation. Could be, but someone saw something blue. Yeah, sure. Right? It wasn't purple or red or other colors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, oh, it's a weird blue thing. And then you say, well, who could it be?
800 graves. Right. 800. Yeah. And you're not, I don't think that you have to stay by your grave when you're hunting a cemetery. I think you get to wander a bit. You get the room. Yeah. You might not be able to go over the fence or the stone wall, but you can stay within the confines. So take note. Yeah. You want to be buried in the largest cemetery possible. Absolutely. You want room to stretch my legs. Yeah. You want acres so you can like wander around. That's a good point. Yeah. Not one of those small ones you'd see like in Portsmouth. No.
Poor family graves with like eight burials. You're like, oh my gosh, this is like... On the side of a busy road. Yeah. Oh, this stinks. Yeah. So someone saw something blue. I wonder if it was like a, you know, in the 70s, did that grave break in two places for two Marys buried in the same spot, married to the same guy, both named Mary. See, more speculation. Two breaks. Two breaks, not one. Two people in the grave. Yeah, because if it's a rectangle and both...
corners broke off. Yeah. And did they break off at the same time or was it around the time that they were both buried?
I don't know. Was the blue light near it? You know, all that stuff. These are things that we latch on to and then the story gets connected. So this cemetery has a reputation. It shows up in lots of lists. I found multiple modern, very modern, like within the last 10 years, you know, articles where local ghost hunters in October would take the reporter to Vail Ann Cemetery and look for ghosts.
And it's funny. I knew some of the people being quoted in it. And one of them said they believed. Hold on a minute because I want to get this right. They believe there are over a dozen ghosts in that cemetery. And I'm like, how do you count them? How do you count them and how do you differentiate them from others? Right. I mean, one's blue, obviously. But, you know, if you're if you're.
If it's something you can see through, if it's hardly visible to you, just something, a mist. Right. How do you categorize them? How do you separate them? As a guy that's been doing this a long time, like, you know, what makes you say that that thing that bumped in the night is not the same thing that... Right. Exactly. Yeah. So how do you put... I've heard people put very specific numbers because if you say, like, there are 23 ghosts here.
here. Like it's not two dozen, right? It's not about 20. Like we round up to twenties or thirties or tens, but I've heard people say like 23 ghosts inside this building and you go 23. How do you come, you know, you could, I mean, I think it's safe to say there's dozens of ghosts or there's probably around a dozen, you know, but the hard numbers, you prove that maybe there's 800. I don't know. And why are, and why are some at rest? Yeah. And some aren't, you know, I mean, right. Right. Like this is, these are the questions.
And this is what skeptics will point out. Like, well, if we all get a ghost when we die, the Earth should be really crowded. Sure. There should be billions of them. Bumping into each other. Yeah, it should be. But not all of them stick around. Well, that's purgatory. So we know that story, right? Right, right. It's not heaven, not hell. It's right in the middle. And some will call that purgatory. Being stuck on Earth haunting is a form of purgatory.
purgatory. Sure, absolutely. Yeah, you're waiting to get upgraded or downgraded, right? So, but anyway, but this is one of those cemeteries that came up in so many lists and
And I've known about this story for a long time, but I'm like, what do we do with it? Like, how do we tell it? You might have noticed we didn't time travel. No, we didn't. We stayed put. We stayed put in the present. We usually go back in time to check it out, but I didn't know what there was to check out in the past. Yeah, there was no stories about the Marys. There was nowhere to go, but I found it interesting enough that I thought it'd be fun to sort of just cover it this way. Yeah, I like that too, because we're stuck with everybody else except for the one person that knows exactly how many ghosts are there. We're still speculating and trying to figure things out.
But that was a, I mean, that was a fun one, even though we didn't time travel and it's nice because I always get a headache. Yes. And for at least a day, it takes me, yeah, it's, it's tough. It wears on me, especially the older I get. Yeah. So to stay put in, uh, in modern times was nice. Stroll a cemetery, look for a ghost.
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