For our next spooky tale, we travel to New Hampshire to meet Nancy Barton, who haunts the Appalachian Mountains with her shrieks and cries of laughter, according to the Appalachian Mountain Club.
In the 1770’s, 16-year-old Nancy Barton was a servant for Colonel Joseph Whipple on his farm in Jefferson, New Hampshire. While she was working, she met Jim Swindell, one of the hands on the farm. Instantly, she fell in love with him and was thrilled when Swindell proposed to her.
Thinking she would be with him forever, she gave all of her assets and money to Jim and made plans to relocate to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. However, that was a mistake. Since Jim had all of Nancy’s earnings, he conspired against her with Colonel Whipple’s help.
Whipple strongly believed in fighting with the American troops in the Revolutionary War, so Jim used Nancy’s money to buy a uniform and join the army. When Nancy found out about the rumor of her lover betraying her to be true, she set off on a journey through Crawford Notch, a 30 mile mountain pass in the White Mountains to find him. Her neighbors begged her not to go due to the harsh winter conditions, but she strongly believed that he couldn’t have gone far.
With her confidence in the trip being short, she packed a small bundle of clothes and no food and set foot toward the mountains. All she had to do was find Jim, confront him and go back to Jefferson together.
After 20 miles through the Notch, Nancy found fire remnants thinking it was left by Jim and sat down waiting to see if he would come back. After a while, she grew tired, hungry and cold so she left and continued her journey. Back in Jefferson, neighbors were worried that she had not yet returned, so they formed a search party to look for her.
Meanwhile, Barton continued to trudge through until she got to the brook where she got her clothes soaked so she sat on a rock close to the water. However, she stayed there freezing, suffering frostbite and hypothermia. Eventually, the search party found her on the rock, frozen to death.
The neighbors buried her in the spot where she was found and marked her grave,
“Nancy Barton of Jefferson N.H perished here in 1778” and recapped her failed journey to find her lost lover.
When Jim heard the news, he felt guilty about what he’d done and endured a psychotic episode. He later died in a psychiatric hospital from an unknown cause. After the news died down, many spots throughout New Hampshire were named after her. Some include Nancy Brook Scenic Area, Nancy Cascades, Mount Nancy and Nancy Pond.
Legend has it that Nancy’s spirit is still in the mountains looking for her lover. Visitors often hear cries and shrieks of laughter and echoes through the woods. Others say that they’ve seen writing on the mirrors and items move on their own at Notchland Inn.
Whether this is true or not, Nancy Barton will always be a symbol for young love and remind us of what people do for their loved ones.