Monsters, Madness and Mayhem: The Mount Misery Story!

Monsters, Madness and Mayhem: The Mount Misery Story!

by Bill Knell 

Let's begin here. Mount Misery Road is considered one of the most haunted roads in the USA. When settlers arrived in the area to trade with Native Americans, they were told to avoid it for their own safety. The area was considered cursed. 

Native stories said that people who travelled along trails there often disappeared. There were also strange animal deaths reported by early farmers in surrounding areas.

Ever since a Revolutionary War skirmish occurred there several people traveling on the road have reported seeing scenes from that battle in cases of what I believe to be retrocognition. The seeing of past scenes in the present.

Mount Misery is the tallest point on Long Island and a place where several towns intersect. Millions of commuters pass it each day on the Long Island Expressway and Northern State Parkway as they journey to and from New York City, blissfully unaware of the rich and somewhat sorted history of the place.

Just on the Suffolk side of the Nassau and Suffolk County line, Mannetto Hill Road is the western border, while Walt Whitman Road borders the Mount on the eastern side. 

Mount Misery begins just off of Old Country Road on its southern side and ends at Jericho Turnpike to the north. Although it’s only a short distance end to end in almost any direction, a lot of history is packed into those miles. Not all of it is the kind you would want to see taught in school.

THE BEGINNING OF A NIGHTMARE

Settled in the late 1600’s, the Mount was the site of a Revolutionary War skirmish and home to Walt Whitman, one of America’s greatest poets. 

Walt Whitman’s Birthplace

More like a large hill, the Mount is the highest point on mostly flat Long Island at an unremarkable 400 feet above sea level. The traditional site of the high point is marked on Jayne’s Hill by a large stone in West Hills Park.

Once rolling meadows, the planting of trees has obscured a view that extended to Fire Island in one direction and Connecticut in the other.

There are no signs saying, “Welcome to Mount Misery.“ It’s simply a name that the area is known by and one which owners of historic and well-heeled homes wish would go away. 

There have been many attempts to change the name of Mount Misery Road to a more pleasant designation, but all have failed thanks to powerful historical societies who appreciate the past. That doesn’t mean they necessarily like discussing some of the more controversial elements of area history and that includes the name.

They claim that early settlers gave it the name Mount Misery because they had tremendous difficulty moving their wagons up the steep hills. Those that settled there quickly found out that the land was completely inappropriate for growing crops. Now, let's get to what I consider to be the real story...

At least two of the five original Native American Tribes that existed on Long Island considered the area taboo. Notations that I’ve seen in journals from some of the area’s oldest churches indicate that Indians were fearful of the area. They believed that negative forces were at work. 

Taking the appearance of odd lights on various parts of the Mount as a bad omen, those who did journey through that area sometimes found dead and mutilated animals. A few early settlers experienced much the same thing, finding their cattle or horses dead and strangely mutilated after odd lights were seen in the sky.

Depending on which historical narrative you believe:

1) The Native Americans involuntarily ceded the land to the settlers who they considered Interlopers and placed a curse on it.

2) (more likely) Native Americans considered the land already cursed by the presence of unknown supernatural forces they believed were evil and settlers simply experienced what had already been going on there for centuries.

Since the Mount offered little in the way of farming opportunities, most of the first non-native people to arrive there settled in more promising locales around it. The Mount became a crossroads and travel route to save building roads through good farmland. 

The Peace and Plenty Inn was established in 1680 and still stands today at 107 Chichester Road. A favorite stop for Theodore Roosevelt two centuries later, the Inn was originally a center of social life and activities for early settlers and travelers. A school, mills that took advantage of natural streams and other small enterprises followed later.

THE ASYLUM

Treatment for the mentally ill once consisted entirely of locking away those considered mad or unable to function well in polite society. Sometime in the early 1700’s a small asylum was built somewhere in the center part of the Mount, away from any homes, business establishments or farms. Because workers were poorly compensated and lacked any training to deal with the insane or mentally disabled, the conditions were said to be atrocious. Patients were beaten or completely ignored.

Everyone on the Mount, and even farmers in areas surrounding it, could hear the miserable cries of the mistreated and insane during the early part of each day and well into every night. This cemented the Mount Misery moniker already used by locals to describe the area. 

After just ten years of operation, the asylum was destroyed by fire with all the staff and residents trapped inside. Although the fire was considered suspicious, no one was ever charged for setting it and no one offered a confession; but all were glad to see the asylum gone! Or was it?

THE NURSE

This next part of the story is based on the testimony of a local named Daniel (no last name mentioned) to British Authorities (before the American Revolution), as well as their own findings based on other, unnamed sources. He was the Sexton (a church handyman and grounds keeper) at a church in what today would be Melville. Denomination not listed.

I found this little gem in a second hand book I purchased. It was called The Mothman Prophecies and written by John Keel. Part of the book mentioned strange happenings on Mount Misery which included sightings of the Mothman and Men in Black.

What I found was not part of the text. It was four old photocopies of four handwritten documents connected to an inquiry by the British Authorities (specific location of the inquiry not listed and they were undated). The photocopied pages were folded and placed in the pages of the book.

Two of the photocopies appeared to be some sort of abbreviated summary of their investigation. The other two were the testimony of the Sexton. Daniel stated that he met a former asylum worker who was like a nurse. She came into the church to pray.

Thinking there was no one around, the "nurse" called on God to forgive her for her part in the "appalling tragedy" on at the asyluy. She finished praying and headed for the door only to find Daniel cleaning in that area. 

Sure he heard her prayer, the"nurse" told him that she worked at the Asylum. Then, she made it clear she had nothing to do with the fire. He did not believe she was telling the truth and reported the incident to the authorities.

Hold on... Here is where it really gets good…

CAREGIVER OR HOMICIDAL MANIAC

As I tried to read the documents it became clear that this was NOT an inquiry into the original Asylum fire. It was an inquiry into a second fire that occurred three years after the first. In the summary it was mentioned that the Asylum was rebuilt two years after it burned down.

That didn't mean that mentally disabled residents received better treatment and the British Authorities made it clear that no one had given permission for a rebuilt. They tried to locate the "nurse" after the first fire based on what the Sexton told them. No luck. 

She suddenly appeared in the church again just after the second fire when no one except the Sexton was there. Once again she prayed for forgiveness for her "appalling" behavior.

The summary ended with the British Authorities finding the "nurse" likely responsible for both fires. The inquiry really had no teeth, but it would have been turned over to a judge and prosecutor for further action. British Law states that a suspect may be considered GUILTY until proven INNOCENT. There are no records indicating what ever happened to the nurse.

HOW MANY MARYS DOES IT TAKE TO SCARE THE DAYLIGHTS OUT OF LONG ISLANDERS?

Mary's Grave... The mere mention of this frightening legend sends chills down a Long Islander's spine. The problem is that the legend has Mary's final unresting place in at least six different locations: Mount Misery, Head of the Harbour, Amityville, St James, Mount Sinai and Stony Brook.

 Each place comes with it's own story, but none of them have a happy ending. All say that a simple gravestone exists with nothing but MARY on it. If you stand there and say her name three times, she appears.

The Mount Misery MARY has her as part of some great family tragedy. Many believe that one of the old ruins located on the Mount was home to Mary and is still cursed today. They believe her grave is right behind or next to the house.

If children go there at night she will kill them (so says the story). More likely it was invented to keep kids like I once was from nosing around looking for weirdness in all the wrong places; namely, dangerous places for kids.

Many researchers agree that there really was a MARY on Mount Misery and she may have lived in the ruined house. Rather than kill children, this Mary lamented the loss of her husband at sea. 

She always had a candle burning in the window at night and prayed for his safe return. When she found out he died, she committed suicide. People claim they still see a candle burning in the window of the ruins every so often and that entering the house brings bad luck.

When I gave a seminar at a library in that area in 1991, a man named Robert came up to me and said he had some information about Mary's Grave on the Mount. He went to the ruins with a friend. They hung out, drank beer and laughed about the legend: "The only thing scary was the warm beer we were drinking."

The next day he told me that his friend was diagnosed with cancer after a routine medical exam conducted earlier revealed a possible cancerous growth. He barely survived and endured several years of painful treatments.

Then, within four months, Robert found himself homeless and sleeping on the couch of relatives for over a year. He did not supply all the details, but said that he had a great job, lots of money in the bank and a house easily worth over $250,000. He finally got back on his feet after nearly two years. Curse? Or just bad financial management? Curse? Or just too much smoking and alcohol?

Other MARYS were rumoured to have been burned as witches, abused or killed by their mothers or fathers, possessed by evil spirits, driven to murdering her family with an axe, hung, stabbed and shot.

My fav and possibly true story is that Mary Hachet was the daughter of a wealthy landowner who built her a stone playhouse on his property. Having few human friends, she could go there and play with her animals.

Legend has it that she somehow became possessed, or mentally ill, then began mutilating the animals. After all the animals were dead, she went after her brother and father with an axe.

People began missing the brother and father, so they came to his property. They supposedly found Mary sleeping in bed next to their dead bodies! She was said to have been housed in the insane asylum on the Mount.

WAS MARY REALLY THAT CONTRARY ??? Let's inject a little logic here. Mary was a very popular name, especially if you were religious. In those days people dabbled in Alchemy which, in some cases, ended up slowly poisoning them. The end result was either an early death or horrendous behavior. 

Then, there was Syphilis and other social diseases that destroyed the brain and no antibiotics (as yet) for treatment. Men were given Carte Blanche to whip and hit their wives for nothing more than dinner being late or the children misbehaving. 

I believe there were several Marys involved in tragic situations or criminal behavior. I also believe that these situations probably had conventional, rather than supernatural explanations.

Part Two