Happy Halloween Oct. 31: spooky Dansville

When we moved to the farm in 2003 we didn't know about a certain local spooky story.



We had heard the true story of the Burning Bed, revealed to the world in a non-fiction book by Faith McNulty, and then made into a 1984 TV movie with Farrah Fawcett about Francine Hughes, the abused wife who set fire to her house in 1977, killing her husband, and getting away with it by "reason of insanity." I don't think she was insane, and I guess I'm glad she got away with it. I had seen the movie back in '84, but when we bought the farm I had to be reminded we were going to be living in the same town where the Burning Bed happened.

Well, one day after moving to the farm, I was browsing books at Schuler's, and there was a book of haunted stories from Michigan. Intrigued, I picked it up and leafed through, finding one from Dansville! The story goes like this (found here):

The Witch of Seven Gables Lane

"The adventurers who tread the back lane called Seven Gables near Dansville in Ingham County still sniff the air to see if they can smell the acrid, burning flesh of the witch who supposedly lived there in years past. . . .

. . . As the legend goes, local marauders locked the woman into her house, which was then set on fire. She perished in the flames, but the stories say she remains to wreak vengeance on those who still dare to venture near her property. . . .

. . . The place became such a teen mecca that a fence was erected to keep snoopers out of the area. The effort proved fruitless as thrill seekers still found their way back to the deceased woman's old place. But they didn't get away scot-free. It was said that the ghost would scream at trespassers and that the scream meant instant doom to its hearers if the premises weren't cleared immediately."

Every day on my country ride to town where I work, I used to drive by Seven Gables Road. It gave me the creeps, let me tell you, just seeing that name "Seven Gables" and remembering the story of that poor woman wreaking vengeance on anyone who goes near her property. But one day I worked up the courage to drive down Seven Gables Road and see if anything would happen. It is a very lonely, quiet dirt road with a few houses near the main road, but soon becomes abandoned and then a dead end. I parked my little Aveo and got out slowly with my camera. I looked across the fence where the house had been, toward the dead tree and cloud in the photo I took, above. Suddenly through the whispering wind someone yelled in the distance! It was a man's voice, not a woman's, but what did that matter! Heart thumping, I jumped in the car, turned it around and made dust fly as I tore back to the main road. I take a different route to work most of the time now, not that I'm afraid or anything. I just like driving through town.

One last eerie thing: Yesterday when I bravely changed my route to work again so I could stop and snap a photo of the Seven Gables Road sign, below, I was angling for a shot and suddenly there in the frame was "my tree" - the tree in my profile picture. I never noticed that it sits right at the foot of Seven Gables Road. You know I quickly scrambled back into my car this time too, my heart thumping again. Oh, and you know about The House of the Seven Gables too, right? Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel about a house haunted by witches and spirits? I mean, how much more spookiness do you want?

(I carved the two jack-o-lanterns in the photos, above, a couple years ago. I used to love carving different things every year when the kids were growing up. I remember doing Carebears one year. Unfortunately, my wrists are too weak to carve through that thick, hard pumpkin flesh now. Plus, we don't have kids at home any more, boohoo - BOO! hoo.)