State file · VT
Haunted places in Vermont
What are the most haunted places in Vermont? The best-known are Emily’s Bridge (Gold Brook Covered Bridge) and The Eddy Homestead Séances.
Vermont’s ghost lore is rooted in its hill farms, covered bridges and small-town inns, and in a long, often surprising history of spiritual experiment. In the 1870s the Eddy brothers’ farmhouse in Chittenden drew believers from across the country to watch spirits “materialize” – and it was there that Henry Steel Olcott met Helena Blavatsky, with whom he founded the Theosophical Society. Like rural Rhode Island, 19th-century Vermont also saw families exhume relatives who had died of consumption in the belief that the dead were draining the living.
- 2 hauntings
- 8 recorded sightings
Haunted places in Vermont
Emily’s Bridge (Gold Brook Covered Bridge)
Vermont’s “most haunted” covered bridge is said to hold the ghost of a jilted woman named Emily. Historians trace the legend to a 1960s school paper. Hoax / debunkedThe Eddy Homestead Séances
In the 1870s a Vermont farmhouse drew pilgrims to see the Eddy brothers “materialize” spirits. Theosophy began here; magicians called it simple trickery. Hoax / debunkedThe ghost lore of Vermont
The state’s most famous haunted place is younger than it looks. Emily’s Bridge, an 1840s covered bridge in Stowe, is said to hold the ghost of a jilted young woman – but historians have traced the legend to a high-school paper of the late 1960s, with no record of any death. It remains a favourite night-time destination all the same.
Elsewhere, ghost stories cling to old inns and taverns along the stagecoach roads, to college buildings in Burlington and Middlebury, and to Montpelier’s state house district. Vermont’s historians have been notably good at telling the story of the story – how a legend begins, spreads and becomes part of a place.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- Stowe
The ski town has Emily’s Bridge and historic inns with ghost stories of their own.
- Burlington
The University of Vermont campus and old downtown are regulars on the city’s ghost walks.
- Chittenden and the Rutland area
Home of the 1870s Eddy séances, a landmark in the history of American Spiritualism.
- Woodstock and the Upper Valley
Old coaching inns and village greens give the area a store of local ghost stories told by innkeepers and historical societies.
Timeline
- c. 1844The bridge is built Emily’s Bridge (Gold Brook Covered Bridge)
John W. Smith builds the Howe-truss covered bridge over Gold Brook. For over a century no ghost story is attached to it.
- 1870The Green Tavern The Eddy Homestead Séances
The census lists William and Horatio Eddy in Chittenden, where their mother runs a small inn that hosts séances for paying guests.
- October 1874Olcott meets Blavatsky The Eddy Homestead Séances
At the Eddy farm Olcott meets Helena Blavatsky; their partnership leads to the founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875.
- October 20, 1874Olcott’s reports in The Daily Graphic The Eddy Homestead Séances
The fifth of Henry Steel Olcott’s illustrated letters from the farm describes the brothers’ trances and materializations for New York readers.
- 1875People from the Other World The Eddy Homestead Séances
Olcott publishes his book on the Eddy séances, while skeptics such as George M. Beard publicly denounce them as fraud.
- Early 1970sThe legend goes into print Emily’s Bridge (Gold Brook Covered Bridge)
Bob Hagerman’s book on Lamoille County bridges reprints parts of a late-1960s high-school paper on the legend – the first published account of Emily.
- 1978The Ouija board admission Emily’s Bridge (Gold Brook Covered Bridge)
Hagerman tells a newspaper that one of the student’s friends confessed the girls had used a Ouija board to produce part of the paper.
- October 31, 2012A historian tells the story of the story Emily’s Bridge (Gold Brook Covered Bridge)
Jill Mudgett’s Vermont Public commentary traces the legend to the student paper and the author’s own disbelief.
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