Weird Western Maryland

The old Snyder farm on Legeer Road in Garrett County was haunted, according to Cynthia Snyder Beitzel (1885-1968), who grew up there. Moreover, the haunt manifested in at least three different ways. First, there was a mysterious sound that came and went, a sound described -- however stereotypically -- as chains rattling. In the days when cargo was hauled by teams of horses, people who heard the sound assumed a team was coming; in later years, when cargo was hauled by motor truck, the sound was assumed to be a truck laboring up the road. But there were no horses, and no trucks, just the rattling sound. Second, horses were said to get skittish on that stretch of Legeer Road, and have to be coaxed or compelled past the Snyder place. Most interestingly, a woman in a white flowing gown would be seen walking from the spring house up the hill toward the Snyder farmhouse. If you looked away, even for a moment, or tried to approach her, she'd be gone. And if you simply watched her from the ...

Here's another supernatural "token" described in Florence Harris Abel's entertaining book The Beitzel Family. To the old-time Beitzels, remember, a token was what others might call an omen: A token was the sign or signal of someone’s death, often occurring with the manifestation of the person’s image or a symbolic occurrence. Just as a ghost is often not recognized as a ghost until it is gone, so a token frequently is not recognized as a token until after the person has died. Some think that as the spirit begins to loosen itself from the earthly body, it enters the presence of persons it has known in this life. … The older generation frequently talked of seeing tokens. Abel titles this story "The Bee in the Cupboard." One night in April 1930, in Henry J. Beitzel and Cynthia Beitzel's kitchen at Keyser's Ridge, all the family members present heard a buzzing in the cupboard, like a bee trying to free itself. Abel continues: Upon inspection, the buzz...