Moll Dyer was a legendary 17th Century resident of Leonardtown in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, who was accused of witchcraft and chased out of her home in the dead of winter. Her name is commemorated by a road, a stream, and a large rock, and her story has inspired ghost sightings and the plot of the 1999 film “The Blair Witch Project.” According to one popular legend, she was an Irish noblewoman who came to Maryland alone to escape a mysterious past and settled in a cottage outside of what was then Seymortown (later called Leonardtown). Her isolated way of life and shadowy past, combined with her reputation as a herbal healer, sparked suspicion among the locals, who labeled her as a witch and began blaming her for all the town’s misfortunes and hardships, despite her habit of giving cures to the townspeople.
The winter of 1697 was particularly harsh, with food in short supply and many people dying. When the local settlers encountered crop failures or severe weather, they blamed it on supernatural forces, either god or the Devil, as was customary at the time. In this case, there were rumors that an old witch had cursed the colony with an unusually cold winter in 1697. The townspeople’s whispers turned into angry accusations, and they devised a plan to permanently remove Moll Dyer.
Moll Dyer, who was thought to be a witch, was blamed for an influenza outbreak that killed many people in St. Mary’s County. “Burn the witch!” yelled a horde of villagers as they set fire to her small hut in the woods. She escaped both the fire and the mob and was discovered frozen to a large rock several days later. When her body was removed, an imprint of her right hand remained on the stone. The town’s residents saw this as a curse she had placed on the area. For generations, the legend of Moll Dyer and her claimed curse has endured. Touching the rock is said to bring misfortune ranging from dizziness to sickness.
The alleged boulder was moved to the front of the Leonardtown courthouse, and while the handprint is no longer visible, many have claimed to feel extremely uncomfortable or suffering from awful aches and pains surrounding it, and cameras have apparently malfunctioned. People have reported seeing a woman with long white hair and a white dress wandering through the fields and woods near the town on the coldest nights of the year, accompanied by a white dog.
There are other stories about her wicked spirit haunting the land around her woods cottage and tormenting anybody who comes too close as retaliation for those who harmed her. A creepy portion of town near Moll Dyer Road is densely wooded and divided by a tiny brook. Locals say this was Moll Dyer’s cottage, and it was close to where her body was discovered in the late 1600s. The fabled curse of Moll Dyer ensures that crops fail to grow and that thunderstorms afflict the citizens of the town.
