The Voice Picks Its Favorite Local Scary Stories

We’ve all enjoyed a good urban legend or ghost tale around a campfire before, but there’s something especially eerie about hearing the dark stories behind familiar locations or landmarks. Maybe it’s because that makes them seem all the more believable — even though they couldn’t possibly be true, right?

As Halloween approaches, we wanted to share five of our favorite local scary stories that have circulated right here in Anne Arundel County.

5. The Crybaby Bridge of Davidsonville

Several places in the United States have a designated “crybaby bridge,” but for the sake of a good ghost story, let’s ignore that fact and just pretend that Maryland’s crybaby bridge — aka Governor’s Bridge in Davidsonville — is the real deal.

Governor’s Bridge dates back to the late 19th century, a single-lane steel structure over the Patuxent River along a winding, isolated road through rural fields and forests. The story goes that a teenage girl from a traditionalist family (some versions say her father was the town minister) gets pregnant, and runs away from home to stay with a distant relative. After the baby is born, she returns home, hoping that her parents will soften when they meet their grandchild; however, they are even angrier than they were before she ran away, and in a fit of fear, the girl flees from home in terror. Alone and terrified, she drowns her baby in the river and then leaves town to seek a new life for herself.

According to superstition, if you park your car on the bridge at night and roll down your windows, you will hear a baby crying.

4. Witch’s Grave at Truxton Park

Salem might be the best-known place of witch trials and hangings, but according to a few legends, there were a handful of accused (or possibly real) witches in Annapolis back in the day. One particular witch is said to be buried in the woods behind Truxton Park on Hilltop Lane, where her house once stood. A short distance past the third baseball field, ghost hunters will find a slanted tree that is said to mark her resting place. Legends vary whether it was the night after her execution (and subsequent unceremonious burial) or the first Halloween afterward, but at midnight, the witch’s ghost returned to avenge herself against those who tried and sentenced her. The responsible parties were never seen or heard from again, but on Halloween night, their apparitions appear hanging from the tree that marks the witch’s grave.

3. Bowie Goatman

Stories about the Bowie Goatman have circulated Maryland since the 1950s, but there’s no real consensus on the local monster’s origins. If you ask some people, you’ll hear that he was once a goat farmer who lost his mind after some prankster teens snuck onto his farm and killed his livestock. That version of the story, however, doesn’t explain how he came to have half-goat features, so we’re going to go with the version stating he is the result of experiments gone wrong involving the breeding of humans and animals at the Beltsville Research Agricultural Center on Fletchertown Road.

Those who claim to have encountered the Bowie Goatman don’t seem to agree entirely on what features of his are goatlike, but he’s said to be mostly human with some combination of hooves, horn and a tail. He is often covered in blood and lurks along the roadside, and he is known to be responsible for dog attacks and scaring teens who are parked in deserted areas.

2. Arnold Chupacabra

This is the newest addition to Maryland’s mythology canon and probably the least believable, but we’re going to include it because it’s local and a little humorous.

Sometime in late winter or early spring 2017, reports of slaughtered farm animals began to circulate Cape St. Claire. People on social media immediately suggested that it might be the chupacabra, a Puerto Rican monster resembling a skeletal, hairless wild dog with large fangs and claws.

Legends of the chupacabra trace back to the mid-1990s in Puerto Rico when a farmer discovered his flock of sheep had been killed in the night. Each had distinct puncture wounds in its chest and was completely drained of blood. Similar killings of farm animals and pets were reported around the island, and thus the legend was born.

Stories in the Broadneck area have become so popular in recent months that a Facebook page has been launched to track “Arnie” the Arnold Chupacabra, and even a few road signs along College Parkway have heeded motorists to watch out for the chupacabra crossing the street.

1. TIE: The James Brice House and St. Anne’s Churchyard

We have to go with a tie for our favorite ghost story in the historic district of Annapolis because, hey, how can we choose between these two?

The first regards the Brice House on East Street, once the home of James Brice, a prominent Annapolitan lawyer and politician. Although nothing unusual was said about the house during Brice’s time, countless strange stories have circulated about the house in the centuries since. Most notable among the tales is that of a monstrous spider said to guard the family’s hidden treasure in the basement. Also, Brice’s son and heir, Thomas, was murdered, and around the time of his death, his valet disappeared — though it is unclear whether his valet was murdered too, or whether the valet was the one who did the deed.

During a restoration of the house in the late ‘90s, workers opening up the walls and lifting up floorboards uncovered talismans and relics related to hoodoo, a folk magic evolved from West African traditions, which might have been practiced by the Brice’s slaves. It’s unclear whether the slaves might have been trying to protect the Brice family by warding off evil spirits or else had more malicious intent. The workers also found the skeleton of a young woman, possibly a sickly relative who had been hidden away from society in an upstairs bedroom.

After these more unusual anecdotes, it’s almost anticlimactic to mention that hundreds of people have reported seeing visions of members of the Brice family walking the halls over the centuries.

Just down the street from the Brice House stands St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, which was tended to during the turn of the 19th century by a macabre sexton named Joseph Simmons, otherwise known as Joe Morgue. A gravedigger with an unhealthy love of his job, Joe Morgue was easily recognized around town by his flowing white hair and beard and his all-black clothes. If he caught anyone staring at him, he would lean on his shovel and point at the person, whispering, “I’ll have you one day.” The townspeople observed one of his more fanatical moments during a particular burial when a comatose narcoleptic awoke just as Joe Morgue was beginning to pile the dirt in the grave. “He’s still alive,” some of the townspeople cried out to Joe Morgue, who would not stop. “He’s got to die sometime,” Joe cried out. “And if he isn’t dead yet, he might as well be.”

Since his death in 1836, Simmons has allegedly still been seen around St. Anne’s — a long-bearded stranger in black workman’s clothes sits in the back of the church, but when somebody tries to approach him, he either gets up and slowly walks out, or else disappears in the blink of an eye.

Have a favorite local ghost story to share with us? Email spvnews@severnaparkvoice.com between now and Halloween, and we’ll share your tale with our readers on Facebook.