This is a place called The Green Mountain Inn in Stowe Vermont New England USA.
We have been lucky enough to stay here a couple of times and thought I would share with you some strange goings on. It was about on the third night at the Inn and I woke up to a funny shuffling noise going on around our bed, then somebody sat on the end of the bed. I seriously thought it was my husband and was about to ask him what was wrong when I realised he was still in the bed (not used to such enormous USA beds so it took quite a while to locate him!). Then nothing else just the weird shuffling and a brief sit down. The following evening we went on a ghost tour and this is what we found out.
The Legend of Boots Berry and the Green Mountain Inn Storm sounds from your average run-of-the-mill winter snowstorm or the fancy footwork of an 1800s spirit who supposedly haunts the Inn? The son of an Inn chambermaid and horseman, Boots was born in 1840 in Room 302 of the Inn’s third floor servants’ quarters and grew up to be a respected horseman himself. He realized local fame when he saved stagecoach passengers from certain doom when the coach’s horses bolted down Stowe’s Main Street one day. Deemed a hero and awarded a medal, Boots was lauded throughout the county and from then on found he was never in need of buying his own drinks again.
Drink proved his downfall, however, and Boots was dismissed from the Inn for neglecting his duties. He took to wandering the country and got his nickname when a fellow prisoner in a New Orleans jail taught him to tap dance.
Boots eventually drifted back to Stowe. As fate would have it, in 1902 Boots happened to be on hand to save a little girl who was stranded on the Inn’s roof during a snowstorm. Remembering a secret childhood route to the rooftop, Boots reached the girl and lowered her to safety before slipping and falling to his death – from the roof above Room 302.
Legend has it that Boots’ rooftop tap dancing steps can still be heard today.
Now was that weird shuffling someone tap dancing around our bed? If I had already been on the ghost tour and learnt this I could imagine I had dreamt it but at the time I knew nothing about Boots Berry!
We also learnt about Emily's Bridge on the ghost tour.
Gold Brook Covered Bridge, also known as Stowe Hollow Bridge or Emily's Bridge, is a small wooden covered bridge in the town of Stowe, Lamoille County, Vermont, running Covered Bridge Road over Gold Brook. Built in 1844, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Haunted?
Several stories explain the name "Emily's Bridge." In one, Emily was to have met her lover (of whom her parents did not approve) at the bridge so they could elope. Emily waited at the bridge, but her guy never showed up. Brokenhearted, she hanged herself from a rafter. Another says Emily, on her way to her wedding, was run down by a runaway team of horses (or her horse threw her and she plunged to the rocks below the bridge). Or, homely Emily was pregnant by her boyfriend, who hanged himself on the bridge when her father demanded marriage. After the birth of twins, Emily did the same. Regardless which story is to be believed, there are various accounts of first-hand experiences with Emily's ghost, said to be quite threatening (many people refuse to cross the bridge alone or at night); there are just as many debunks of those stories. Many people that have visited Emilys Bridge have experienced disturbing paranormal activity. People have reported scratch marks appearing on vehicles that were parked on the bridge, and being touched or scratched by Emily's ghost. Often strange noises are heard on the bridge, noises such as footsteps, ropes tightening, and a girl screaming. Many also have reported seeing a white apparition around the area of Emily's Bridge. People that have parked their vehicle on the haunted bridge say they tend to hear banging noses from Emily hitting the vehicle on the outside, or the sound of something dragging across the top of the car.
Now we didn't go down to the bridge that evening as it is on an old unlit dirt road and we didn't fancy that, not because we might scare ourselves witless, but more because of driving on the wrong side of the road (for us) at night and not really knowing where we were going didn't really appeal. The following day we decided to check the bridge out in the day light. On arriving there we parked the car and looked around, I said to my husband I'll walk under the bridge and talk to Emily and you take photographs of me. I walked straight through without stopping telling Emily how famous she was and that I would love to see her. Nothing, a big fat nothing! That is until two weeks later when we got home and looked at the photograph.
Remember I walked straight through without stopping, WHERE ARE MY LEGS?
I know for sure that we haven't tampered with the photograph and yes there is a metal girder in the way but I think you agree that if my legs were both behind that I would be toppling over, and possibly also belong to the ministry of funny walks! What do you think? Let me know.
We were told of a man who took a photograph of his wife and three daughters all stood on the bridge, when they looked at the photograph all three daughters had skeleton arms.
Another family of five had their photograph taken on a sunny day by the bridge, there were six shadows of people when it was developed.
So if you love nice places and ghost stories it's definitely the place to go, here are a few more pictures of Stowe to wet your appetite.
And now for my rant. I had to fill in some forms on line for my bank, free insurances and travel stuff we get included with other services. The questions went on and on involving lots of trips upstairs to find paper work and numbers, lots and lots of numbers none of which you know off hand.
After a while I came to fill in insurance details for my phone, I was a bit jaded by this time and had already done a years worth of sighing! So I'll set the scene for you, husband was in kitchen cooking with cooker hood fan on and other background noises, I was in the lounge. Make of phone was the first question, easy, model of phone, mmmmmmmm, looks at phone, no number on it, don't want to take the battery out to see if model no is inside the case as I was waiting for a call, shouts to husband, where is the box for my phone, WHAT, where is the box for my phone, in the loft, !!!!!!!!!!!, I take the battery out and there are a lot of numbers on a white sticker. Now I am told I have amazing eyesight for reading small things by my optician, but really this information is surely for an ant! Do you have a magnifying glass?, WHAT, do you have a magnifying glass? WHAT, do you !!!!!!!, no we don't, take a picture of the sticker with your camera and then magnify that on your camera, O.K, picture taken but to blurred, go to take another and the battery dies, change battery, re take picture, magnify the picture to something the human eye has a chance of seeing, type in the make of my phone and a whole load of other no's on the sticker that they need, THE MESSAGE ON THE SCREEN READS 'SORRY THIS PAGE HAS TIMED OUT PLEASE RE REGISTER AND START AGAIN FOR SECURITY REASONS'. I have replaced the battery and have lost the will to live, tomorrow is another day, I will outwit that form!
Lastly am I the only person to have had enough of Union Jack items in every available shop window, 99% of them all tacky? I'm sure nobody wants a room with a Union Jack chair and cushion to sit on and then do their ironing on a Union Jack ironing board cover, no doubt the ironing will consist of Union Jack T.shirts Tea Towels and possibly dresses, then have a bath and dry yourself on your Union Jack towel before slipping into your Union Jack Pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers! Not to mention the solar powered figure of the waving queen my friend saw recently! God please tell me you didn't buy it! If you insist on buying all this stuff save yourself a whole load of money and buy it for half price when the Queens Jubilee and the Olympics are over.
