The story of a witch named Moll Dyer is one of the horror stories told in Maryland on Halloween. It is not known exactly whether this woman existed in reality 300 years ago, but there is a road named after her and a stream, as well as a place south of Leonardtown, where her house once allegedly stood. And also her witch's stone.
A large, rounded stone bearing what is called the Moll Dyer palm and knee print was laid on the lawn near the Leonardtown City Courthouse back in 1972. And on the forest road Moll Dyer Road, as if they often see her ghost.
According to legend, about 300 years ago, Mall Dyer lived in a forest hut between Leonardtown and Redgate. She lived very poorly, and survived mainly by begging for alms. This woman was unsightly and fit the description of a classic witch.
Winter in 1697 turned out to be very harsh and the frosts did not recede in any way. People whispered that it was the longest winter of all. The cold came in mid-November and did not go away even at the end of February, although in other years these days the snow was already beginning to melt and it was getting warmer. Soon, rumors spread that this was all the work of witchcraft, and Moll Dyer was the most successful candidate for the role of a witch.
Executions of witches in Maryland were uncommon at the time. In June 1654, a ship arrived from Maryland to England and its crew reported in paints that they had hanged a woman named Mary Lee for witchcraft in accordance with the verdict of the Maryland Council. And on October 9, 1685, Rebecca Fowler of Calvert County was hanged for practicing witchcraft. And she was the only person executed in Maryland itself for witchcraft, according to the 1938 book Crimes and Punishments in the Early State of Maryland.
However, in the case of Moll Dyer, everything was against her. A group of people was gathered and found evidence of her crimes, including Moll Dyer's neighbors blaming her for the loss of the crop and the death of their livestock. At the end of the cold February 1697, a crowd of townspeople with torches entered the Mall Dyer hut and set it on fire. The woman managed to escape and hide in the forest.
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For several days no one heard or saw Moll Dyer, and it was decided that she froze and died. But then the boy, who went into the forest to look for the runaway goat, said that he saw a witch who knelt on a large stone and, pressing her hand to the stone, cursed all her tormentors by name.
After several more cold nights, they found her frozen to death on this stone, she did not leave it anywhere. She sat in a prayer position and according to legend, she put a curse on everyone who tried to kill her and on all their lands.
For two hundred years nothing has been heard about the curse of the Mall Dyer. And on September 12, 1901, The Beacon reported about a young man riding a horse in a deep dark night along a forest road to Leonardtown. Suddenly he noticed another rider nearby and wanted to catch up with him, but froze in horror when he realized that the rider's horse was headless.
In addition, the horse did not have a hindquarters either. The rider rode only on the central part of the animal, and everything else seemed to dissolve into space.
But back in 1857, this forest road was named after Mall Dyer, and in 1854 60 acres of land near Clay Hill Road north of Redgate were named Mall Dyer Hill. Thus, the witch "took" these lands, which once belonged to those who offended her.
In 1968, Philip Love, editor of The Evening Star, and his wife decided to find a Mall Dyer stone in the forest and found a rounded boulder that had matching prints. However, this stone was found back in 1911 when clearing a ravine in the town of Clover Lot, and according to the records, "knee prints were still clearly visible on it."
In 1970, someone was hunting in the woods near the Mall Dyer road and said that he saw a strange, foggy cylindrical formation emitting light. It moved against the wind to the east, crossed the stream and moved south. And then it came back and repeated the same path again. The eyewitness did not assure that it was undoubtedly the ghost of Moll Dyer, but assured that he saw something really strange.
On October 14, 1972, soldiers of the local National Guard dragged a heavy stone from Clover Lot to the Historical Society's old county jail and placed it on the lawn in front of the courthouse, where it remains today.
Local legend says that the stone is also cursed and that people who even just walk next to it may feel dizzy and even faint. But according to local residents, the spirit of the witch "does not bother them at all."
