Spooky Ladies of New England Trivia Quiz

Answer: Theft

After being acquitted of her father and stepmother's brutal hatchet murders, Lizzie used her inheritance money to relocate herself and her younger sister to a more fashionable neighborhood in their hometown of Fall River, Massachusetts. However, neither Borden sister was ever fully accepted by the upper crust folk whom they tried to emulate. Lizzie showed evidence of being a very troubled woman in her subsequent life, and at one point, allegedly stole a picture from a shop in Fall River.

After she returned the picture, no further action was taken. On an additional, even more troubling note: According to an account given by a female relative, some years prior to the infamous murders of Andrew and Abby Borden, Lizzie killed the relative's cat because the animal cried and otherwise made a nuisance of itself. According to the relative, when asked if she had seen the cat, Lizzie replied, 'Go down in the cellar and you'll find your cat." The relative did just that, and found the dead cat lying on a table.

Answer: Rebecca Nurse

The first official victim of this horrible episode in Colonial American history was elderly and upstanding citizen, Rebecca Nurse. Goodwife Nurse had never in her life been accused of any wrongdoing, much less witchcraft, when the selfish antics of the awful Salem girls led to her eventual execution by hanging. To her credit, Goodwife Nurse never faltered in her profession of innocence, and one can only hope that the ghastly girls responsible for her death were reincarnated as toads.

Answer: A boot

The local P.R. version of the story goes thus: In the late 1600s, Colonel Buck was actively involved in the arrest, sentencing and eventual execution of a local woman accused of being a witch.Some say the pair were linked in an illicit love affair prior to the charge of witchcraft, but no one knows for sure. All agree, however, that upon being sentenced to death, the alleged witch cried out that Col. Buck would be cursed and that she would leave the proof of the curse upon his tombstone.

History dates the colonel's death as having occurred some years later, but when he was still in relatively good health and not expected to die.

After he was buried, the strange image of a slender leg ending in a narrow, pointed boot appeared on his tombstone. Family members tried to wash, wipe, and scrape it off, but to no avail.

A new tombstone was erected, but the same image reappeared. Almost everyone who has ever been to Bucksport, Maine (including yours truly) has seen the ghostly boot on Buck's tombstone and can attest to its genuine quality.

It remains one of Maine's most well-known and widely-accepted mysteries.

Answer: She was believed to be a vampire

The bizarre tale of Mercy Brown and her doomed family is almost too ghastly to be true. Yet it is. After Mercy's mother and older sister died of consumption (or tuberculosis) within a two year span of one another, Mercy and her brother came down with the disease as well.

In Mercy's case, the consumption was more aggressive and killed her within a few months. Her grieving father duly buried her, but a few months later, Mercy's dying brother professed to have seen her in spirit form. Mr. Brown, desperate to save his remaining child, decided that his dead daughter was a vampire and was somehow preying on the young man, slowly killing him.

The rest of the town agreed with Mr. Brown's assessment and helped him dig up poor Mercy's corpse to check it for signs of undeadness. According to historians, the corpse's skin was still pliable and its cheeks still rosy even three months after Mercy's death, but they contend that this was probably due to the dampness of the ground in which it was buried as well as other factors specific to death from consumption.

However, the increasingly unbalanced Mr. Brown was at this point pathologically convinced of his late daughter's vampirism. In accordance with an obscure pagan tradition, he cut out Mercy's heart, burned it on a rock, and fed the ashes to her brother. Of course the young man died anyway, and Mr. Brown was charged by authorities with desecration of a corpse. He was never convicted, though, largely due to the outpouring of sympathy for his crazed state after having lost his entire family to a "Mercy-less" familial epidemic of consumption.

Answer: Pirates

Born at sea as her parents sailed from England to the United States, Mary was perhaps the only reason a marauding band of privateers spared the lives of those on board that particular ship. Coming upon the newborn baby girl, the head privateer offered to spare the lives of the ship's crew and passengers if the baby was named "Mary" after his own mother.

Naturally, the deal was made, and Mary went on to live a somewhat shady life in New Hampshire. Tall and red-haired, she was purported to associate with pirates and there has long been talk of a buried treasure chest on the property of her old house.

Some say that the ghost of a pirate lover also visits her son's house in Henniker, where she drew her last breath and died of old age in the 1700s.

Answer: William James

Unlike many other supposed mediums of the era, Lenora Piper was a solid little citizen with nary a flamboyant bone in her pint-sized body. But, according to nearly every self-proclaimed expert who tested her, she was astoundingly accurate in telling "sitters" things that she had no way of knowing about their personal lives. William James, who had made an exhaustive study of the possible reality of psychic phenomena before meeting Miss Piper, wrote that "(paraphrased) To prove that all crows are not black, it is necessary only to find one white crow. Lenora Piper is my white crow."

Answer: A hairdryer

According to King, when he received the phone call telling him that he had sold "Salem's Lot" back in the early 70s, he went out and bought Tabitha a new hand-held hairdryer because hers had recently broken. I read this cute little fact in an interview that King gave to our local Bangor Daily News just as he was beginning to become famous outside of Maine.

Answer: Josette

Josette's portrait hung in the Collins family's original homestead, Rose Cottage, which was always a stopping point for visiting friends and family. Ol' Josette was known for manifesting in spirit form from time to time, and at one point, even possessed one of Barnabas Collins' lady friends.

As a fifth grader, I found Josette's portrait quite frightening when, in one episode, it actually moved. Of course, these days, the special effects wouldn't even frighten a three-year-old.

Answer: The House of Seven Gables

When Nathanial Hawthorne died of what is believed to have been cancer in the mid-19th century, his widow Sophie took their daughter Una to England where they both eventually died and were buried. In the latter part of the 20th century, a hawthorn tree (no kidding) fell on Una's grave, breaking the headstone.

At that point, the American branch (no pun intended) of the Hawthorne family decided to bring Una and Sophie back home to Massachusetts, where they were buried next to Nathanial on Author's Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery--and where, presumably, all three now rest in peace.

Answer: Tried to help prisoners escape

In life, the lady in black was the wife of Col. Andrew Lanier, and never was a young Southern wife more devoted to her young Southern husband. After Andrew was captured and imprisoned at Ft. Warren, Mrs. Lanier headed north, intent on freeing him as well as some of the other Confederate prisoners.

The imprisoned men dug a tunnel to the outside of the fort walls, where she waited, dressed as a man and armed with guns. But one of the guns accidentally went off, alerting the Union guards, who recaptured the would-be escapees. All who were involved in the escape plot were sentenced to be executed, including Mrs. Lanier.

After her sentencing, she asked that she at least be allowed to trade in her man's apparel for a dress to wear to the hanging. It just so happened that there was a black dress used for theatrical purposes on the fort premises, and the condemned Mrs. Lanier was allowed to put it before being escorted to the gallows. Now, according to local legend, her ghost walks the grounds of Ft. Warren, perhaps still trying to find an escape route home.