New England Legends Podcast

In Episode 267, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger cruise down Farm Street in Dover, Massachusetts, looking for a strange monster who made an appearance back on April 21, 1977. Bill Bartlett didn’t have a camera, but being an artist, he was able to draw what he saw. It was like no other creature anyone had ever seen before. By the following night, three more people witnessed this strange creature that Loren Coleman first chronicled and dubbed the Dover Demon. Was it a cryptid? An alien? Something...

In Episode 266, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the haunted Mt. Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Built in the White Mountains in 1900 by Joseph Stickney, he didn’t live long enough to get much use out of the hotel. His widow, Princess Carolyn inherited the hotel and made a reputation for throwing lavish parties and always being the best dressed. In 1944, the hotel was home to a huge international conference that would give rise to the IMF, the World Bank, and conspiracy...

In Episode 265, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger hunt for an eight-foot-tall humanoid giant of a creature in Craftsbury, Vermont, that locals called the Goonyak. Back in November of 1978, the Goonyak was all the talk on morning radio and in the newspapers. Some even said the body was recovered and sent to the University of Vermont. Is this the Northeast Kingdom’s version of Bigfoot? What exactly happened back in 1978?

In Episode 264, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger hunt for the ghost of the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut. Opened in 1844, this is the oldest continually-operating art museum in the United States. The haunting first made the newspapers back in 1911, when a group of past and present employees gathered to share their unexplained experiences inside the old building. The group thinks they know who is haunting the old Athenaeum.

In Episode 263, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore a dangerous piece of rock at Purgatory Chasm in Middletown, Rhode Island, called Lover’s Leap. It was here long ago that they say a young heiress dared her would-be suitor to prove his love to her by jumping across the chasm. Will he make the jump? Will he get the girl? This was also the place where the Devil once landed after a cross-harbor leap.

In Episode 262, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger search for a haunted well located at the back of Sabattus, Maine, cemetery where they say back in 2001, a kid was lowered down, and when he came back up his hair turned white, he’d ages decades, and he lost his mind. But is it true? We found the source!

In Episode 261, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore Old Hadley Cemetery, in Hadley, Massachusetts, which is the final resting place of accused witch, Mary Webster. A ward of the town, Webster was accused of witchcraft in 1683 but found innocent. Though the court’s verdict wasn’t good enough for the people of Hadley. When a prominent church deacon fell under a strange illness in 1684, some locals were sure he was under a spell of Mary Webster, and they took matters into their own hands. They...

In Episode 260, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the small town of Orford, New Hampshire, searching for a woman written up in the 1837 American Journal of Science for exhibiting the strange ability to shoot sparks from her body all day long with no ability to stop. Dr. Willard Hosford or Orford, documented this strange case that we’re still talking about today.

In Episode 259, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger are forced to take a week off because they both have Covid! So this week they introduce you to an episode from the vault: The Bootlegger Queen of Vermont, which originally aired September 24, 2020. Back to 1925 in West Halifax, Vermont, during the height of prohibition, Hilda Stone made a name for herself running illegal booze from Canada. Stone became an icon in the newspapers, and was arrested more times than you can count on one hand.

In Episode 258, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the hilly woods of Hamden, Connecticut, searching for a giant named Hobbomock. For centuries the Quinnipiac people told the story of a pesky giant who plagued their people. A giant who could change the course of rivers, and devour the local delicacies. The giant was ultimately tricked, and today you can still see where he lies sleeping in Hamden.

In Episode 257, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger take a week off, so they introduce you to an episode from the vault: The Day it Rained Fish in Olneyville, Rhode Island, which originally aired June 24, 2021. At an unremarkable intersection in Providence, it once rained fish down from the sky back on May 15, 1900, but that wasn’t the only weird thing to make the headlines that day. Just across town, an explosion in a trolley car covered the occupants with a mysterious goo. May 15, 1900, may just...

In Episode 256, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger take a week off, so they introduce you to an episode from the vault: Three Strange Beasts from the Woods of Maine, which originally aired March 5, 2020. In the woods of western Maine, we search for the Agropelter, the Billdad, and the Tote Road Shagamaw. These legendary creatures have haunted and hunted loggers for decades. Are they just tall tales told around the campfire at the end of the day, or could there be something more to it?

In Episode 255, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger head to the woods of Gloucester, Massachusetts, to search for some ghostly soldiers and scouts who plagued the town for weeks back in July of 1692. With the Salem Witch trials happening just a few towns away, and King William’s War raging to the north, everyone is on edge. Pretty soon, the people of Gloucester think these aren’t soldiers at all, but minions of the devil who can’t be shot or scared.

In Episode 254, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the town green of South Royalton, Vermont, searching for the memorial to Hannah Handy--the only memorial to a woman from the Revolutionary War in the state of Vermont. On October 16, 1780, Handy rescued nine children who were taken prisoner in a British raid. Her story was almost lost if not for a local historian who lobbied her town to raise funds for a monument.

In Episode 253, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger head to Newton, New Hampshire, to explore the tragic story of Hannah Chase, who took her own life the day before her wedding in June of 1819. Her story and the pond where she perished may have been forgotten if not for the pen of Haverhill, Massachusetts, poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who immortalized the story and place. Chase’s story haunted Whittier as a boy.

In Episode 252, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger walk the roads of Hampton, Connecticut, searching for the story of the Darn Man, a colorful vagabond who wandered Windham County in the 1850s and 1860s wearing the coat he was to be married in, but his bride never showed. He gave different names to different families, he’d never talk about his past or origins, yet he became a local celebrity and the focus of many stories. But who was he really?

In Episode 251, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore Plain Meeting House Cemetery in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, searching for the lost grave of Nellie Vaughn. Some say she was a vampire. Others claim she was a witch. More believe her restless spirit still haunts this boneyard trying to right a wrong from decades ago. Could this be a case of mistaken identity?

In Episode 250, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger sail out to the Isles of Shoals, Maine, to investigate the infamous Smuttynose Island murders. On March 5, 1873, two women were brutally murdered on the island, while a third narrowly escaped with her life. Louis Wagner was hanged for the crime, but did they execute the right man? This crime still haunts the tiny islands.

In Episode 249, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger hike up Mt. Nonotuck in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in search of the Eyrie House Ruins. The site was a once-popular hotel and resort in the latter half of the 1800s featuring live music, a menagerie of exotic animals, and incredible views. But a horrible tragedy took away owner William Street’s castle in a single night back on April 13, 1901. There was a funeral pyre that went horribly wrong.

In Episode 248, Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger head to Sandgate, Vermont, to try and solve the mystery of a Norman Rockwell masterpiece painting called “Breaking Home Ties” that was proudly displayed in the Norman Rockwell museum between 2002 and 2006. The only problem is the museum painting was a fake. What happened to the original?