Moll Dyer
In 17th century Leonardtown, Maryland there was an infamous woman named Moll Dyer. Although no direct historical record has been found of her existence, a road, a stream, and a large rock all bear her name. But who do we think she was?
Similarly to the Bell Witch, we aren’t quite sure what exactly her origins were before her title of ‘witch.’ Most sources seem to agree that she was a woman that lived in semi-isolation on the edge of town. Her origin was unknown to many of the townspeople and this created a hotbed of speculation - some believed she was an Irish noblewoman on the run, others believed she was running a way (or even killed a husband), and some believed she had been run out of her hometown. As noted before there was no record of a ‘Moll’ Dyer, but there were several Dyers in the area at the time and ‘Moll’ could have been a nickname of one of them, or that her birth certificate was never created or otherwise improperly filed and lost to the archives of time. Her story wasn’t recorded until the 19th century when a local writer, Joseph F. Morgan decided to write the story down.
In addition to her isolation, it is believed she practiced as a healer. Like many healers during the 17th century as soon as a series of misfortunes took hold of the town Moll was blamed and labeled a witch. During a particularly cold winter, the townspeople arrived at her small house and ran her out. Some stories says the townsfolk came to her door dramatically - torches and pitchforks in hand. Others say that their intent was just to scare her enough to get her to move. Moll, unbelievably, escaped this small but angry mob. She ran from the fire of her home and it was believed she ran in the dead of a cold, cold night until she fell upon a large boulder. It was at this boulder that she died. Several days later, a young boy came upon her corpse. Her body was frozen and one of her arms was allegedly stretched towards the heavens, perhaps in a last ditch effort for her or as a way to curse her tormentors.
How do we know this? Well, it is rumored that the imprints of her hand remained burned into the rock for hundreds of years. This boulder is so important that the local historical society had it moved and placed in front of their building. It is also said that at the original site of the rock the fields were strangely barren for years after her passing.
However, her curse had more effects than leaving behind handprints and making a few fields barren. It was said that the men responsible for leading the mob to Moll’s door all had bouts of horrible luck. Their lands became barren, their livestock died, they got sick, and their families suffered.
It should also be noted that some people believed Leonardtown and the story of Moll Dyer partly inspired the being and energy in The Blair Witch Project.
The above image is unrelated to the story it is by Aleks G and is liscensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.