Tag Archives: rural area

The Haunted Routes of Rehoboth

Age: 71

 MC: “I live in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, which, of course, is in New England.

And there are a lot of old ghost stories that center around the region we live in.

And many years ago, well, probably about 20 or 30 years ago, um, an author from the town that I live in, Rehoboth, um, decided to investigate some of the stories he had heard about.

And one of the stories was the redheaded hitchhiker of Route 44.

And as the story goes, this is first traced back, I think, to the late 60s.

Someone was driving down Route 44 from Seekonk into Rehoboth.

And all of a sudden, a face appeared on the right outside the passenger window, and it was obviously really scary.

It was nighttime.

And the thing was, the car wasn’t stopped, it was going.

And the face was, like, pressed up against the window, and he stayed there for a while and just disappeared.

Now, many years later, there were several other sightings of this red headed hitchhiker, who always had on a red plaid shirt.

And in one of the stories, he was on Route 44 again, traveling the same stretch through Rehoboth.

And he was in the middle of the road, and he just appeared as this woman was driving through, and she didn’t have enough time to break, but she tried to break, and she knew she was gonna hit him, and when she looked through her rear view mirror, she had gone right through him.

Like, he wasn’t, like, dead on the side of the road or anything.

So she was freaked out about that.

And then there was another couple, too, where something very, very similar happened, all on this one stretch of road, and nobody could, they reported this, and nobody could really attribute it to anything.

But many years go by, and I think there were a total of, like, five or six cases where people had seen this red headed hitchhiker with big, bushy, red hair, and the same type of red plaid shirt.

Sometimes, they noticed he was in jeans, and there was a couple from Swansea going down that same road, and they saw him as well.

And this was between many years.

In fact, I think the last official sighting was in the 1980s.

So within, like, a 15 year period, um, it was reported, like, five or six times that somebody had seen him, and he always had this evil laugh. That they could hear.

And for some of them, the laugh would get, like, really, like, loud, and for others, it would kind of, like, drift off into the woods.

And for one of the incidents, he actually, someone stopped to pick him up, because they thought, obviously, he was real, and he got into the car, but didn’t say anything, just kind of nodded when he was spoken to, or made a face when he was spoken to.

And when it was time for him to get out of the car, he didn’t open the door.

He just went through the door.

And, of course, that was scary.

That’s the end of the hitchhiker story, as I know it.”

Interviewer: “Okay, so, have you ever heard of anybody you know actually, like, seeing or experiencing the hitchhiker?”

MC: “Um, If I remember right, back, um, no, I don’t know anyone who was actually seeing that particular apparition, but there was something. You know who JC. is, right?”

Interviewer: “Yeah.”

MC: “I vaguely remember, and you’d have to check with JP on this to know if I’m remembering it.

It was someone, one of her friends, and I think it was JC, who was driving home late at night, and it wasn’t on Route 44.

But it was on the corner of 118 in Fairview Avenue.

Do you know which one that is?”

Interviewer: “Yeah, I think so.”

MC: “Yeah, but so it’s, like, two kind of major roads, well major for Rehoboth anyway.

And it was pretty, pretty late, and there was someone just standing there near a stone wall.

And I vaguely remember JC telling us about it.

That’s the only thing, but it was…”

Interviewer: “Was it a redheaded figure or anything like that?”

MC: “Um, I can’t remember the details on that.

And I don’t know if she had heard that story and was kind of imagining things, but she definitely thought it was some kind of an apparition.

Not just a person.

But they were standing near the stone wall, on the corner of 118 in Fairview Avenue.

So there’s a stop sign there.

So, JC, if it was JC, had stopped there, and looked over, and it was, like, the middle of the night.

Like, it was late, late, late, and she just, it freaked her out, too.

That’s the only thing I know.

So I don’t know about the roads in Rehoboth, they’re a little bit haunted, you know?”

Interviewer: “Do you believe that apparitions continue to haunt these roads, or it is more simply a story for you?”

MC: “To me, it’s more like a story.

It’s more like a story, but, you know, you never know.

Yeah.

You never know.

I mean, I think it happened enough, there were enough years in between sightings, that’s no coincidence.

I’ve yet to see him myself. But, you never know.”

Context: This story was told to the informant by her grandmother several times throughout their life. It is a local legend rooted in the history of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, where they are both from. This widespread tale is known throughout surrounding areas and has been the inspiration behind a short film, a podcast and many articles about ghosts of the region.


Analysis: In this rural legend, sightings of a distinctly red-headed, plaid-adorned ghost are reported along a stretch of a local main road. Throughout the story many common motifs are present, such as the unnerving laugh, spectral face in the window, and passing through material objects. With reports spanning from the 1960s to 1980s, this tale continues to be well-circulated throughout the region, drawing the attention of inhabitants and inspiring various media interpretations. The subject reporting the story seems skeptical as to the actual presence of the ghost, yet is unwilling to entirely dismiss the notion. Recognizing the eeriness of the town’s streets at nights, the subject admits to a slight ‘haunting’ feeling present as one drives through a small town without streetlights. In the spectrum between belief and disbelief, the subject recognizes the legend as more of a story than reality for them, yet acknowledges how the history of reportings seems beyond just coincidence.

Arkansas Legend Quest

Text:

“There’s this light, it’s in this town like thirty minutes north of us, it’s in the middle of nowhere on a field. The story is that there was a conductor on a train and this railroad goes along the side of this road, and apparently a conductor fell off and his head got cut off and he looks for his head every night, and that’s why you see a light on the railroad. If you drive out there you’ll see a light floating above the road, and apparently if it touches your car then your car will turn off. So all of our parents have stories about it, like how they’ve gone and seen the light. I don’t know if they’re actually true. But my friends went one time, I didn’t go cause it was during Covid, but they went and I was on facetime with them when it happened. And my friend N, they were on the road and she just started crying like sobbing, and she like never cries. Cause she swore that she saw it, and then they all started screaming because apparently it was coming towards the car, and that’s when they pulled out and left. I’ve been before and nothing happened.” 

Context:

GR is a 19-year-old college student from a small town in northern Arkansas. He was in high school when this story was told, and he’d been hearing the stories about the railroad since he was a little kid. His parents and adults in his town would tell him their experiences of seeing the light, and he doesn’t know if they were making it up to scare him or not. Research shows that this legend is a popular one that can be found online, called the Gurdon Lights in Gurdon Arkansas. He says that his town and a lot of northern Akansas have a lot of hauntings and ghost stories, supposedly because the granite rocks in the ground are a conductor for spirits according to legend. 

Analysis: 

This story is an example of legend questing, where a group of people go out to look for a legend and try to insert themselves into it. It’s also an example of a memorate, where someone’s existing experience fits into the pre established legend. Legend questing is especially popular amongst young people. There might be a multitude of reasons for that. Young people are still figuring themselves out, figuring out what the story of their life is going to be, so it can be compelling to insert themselves into a legendary story that already exists. Since they’re young, they’re supposedly further away from death, so seeking out ghosts and graphic stories about death can both be them putting to use the immortality they feel they have, and also interacting with the concept of death that is both scary and unfamiliar. In certain cultures and in older people, ghost stories are often comforting and warm, such as a visit from a family member. The ghost stories young people tell though, at least in America, are often graphic and tragic and scary, because that’s how they view death to be. They’re both interested in this concept that is so far away, and terrified of this concept that is actually so near, and this fear and interest manifests into young people seeking out ghosts. I also believe that young people seek out legend quests more often because children are raised on fairy tales and magical figures like the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Santa. They are raised being told that magic is, in some ways, real. As teenagers and young adults they’re expected to separate themselves from the childish idea that magic is real, but there’s a small part of everyone that still wishes that the mystical might be real. 

I also think that Arkansas might be a large hub for supernatural stories because it’s still quite a rural area, there aren’t as many large and prominent cities as there are in other states. While Christianity began spreading around cities, rural areas continued worshiping their own pagan gods. Christianity then decided to paint rural areas as places where the Devil lives, and declare the people who live there as Devil worshipers. This idea has made us see nature and the wild as areas prone to the influence of the devil, so these wide spans of nature secluded from everyone else are seen to be areas more likely to have hauntings and ghosts. Rural town populations in Arkansas have a largely Christian population now, so they might be more inclined to look at the isolated, wild areas near them (such as abandoned train tracks) as scary places of the Devil.