Mary Wilson, nicknamed Ocean-Born Mary, is the focus of several legends and is reputed to haunt a house in Henniker, New Hampshire, a home in which she never lived. According to a legend that is generally considered to be a true story, Wilson acquired her nickname when her mother gave birth at sea en route from Ireland to America. The ship on which her parents were traveling was boarded by pirates, the leader of whom agreed to spare the lives of those on board the ship if Wilson’s mother named the newborn baby after his mother, Mary. The pirate also gave Wilson’s mother a gift of green brocade fabric and told her that the material should be used to make a wedding dress for her daughter when she married. Wilson’s father died soon after the family landed in the United States, but her mother remarried. When the family settled in New Hampshire, a civic thanksgiving day was established to commemorate the deliverance from the pirates of Wilson, who was by now known as Ocean-Born Mary, as well as the other ship passengers.
In December 1742, Ocean-Born Mary, who was described as tall, red haired, elegant, and witty, wed James Wallace wearing a gown made from the fabric given to her mother by the pirate captain (pieces of which can still be seen in the Henniker Library and the Leach Library of Londonderry in New Hampshire). The couple went on to have four sons (Thomas, Robert, William, and James) and one daughter called Elizabeth. When these children married they all settled in Henniker, New Hampshire, where Robert built a mansion that over the years became known as Ocean Born Mary House despite the fact that Ocean-Born Mary never lived there.
Ocean-Born Mary’s husband died in October 1791, and in 1798 she went to live in Henniker with her son William. In February 1814 Ocean-Born Mary died and was buried in William’s family plot in the graveyard of what is now called the Community Building. A headstone bearing the inscription, “In Memory of Widow Mary Wallace who died Feb. 13, 1814 in the 94th year of her age,” identifies the grave. Additionally, in front of the gravestone is a small marker stating, “Ocean Born Mary.”
After Ocean-Born Mary’s death, a number of folktales and romanticized versions of her life developed. For instance, in 1898 Ida G. Adams wrote a story about Ocean-Born Mary called “An Historical Romance,” and in 1902 a romanticized poem called “Mary Wilson Wallace” was printed. More importantly, around 1917 a new family moved into Robert Wallace’s home that was headed by Louis Maurice Auguste Roy, usually referred to as Gussie Roy. After learning that Ocean-Born Mary had lived in Henniker, Roy mistakenly believed that she must have occupied the house that he now owned. The misconception that Ocean-Born Mary lived in Robert’s house developed at the end of the nineteenth century, since the house she actually lived in, which belonged to her son William, had been destroyed by this time. Roy also decided to tell people that Ocean-Born Mary had not only dwelled in the house but that all the furniture had belonged to her too. This boasting led to the emergence of a number of legends. These legends included the idea that after the death of her husband, Ocean-Born Mary married the pirate captain who had spared her life as a baby. According to this legend the pirate, named Don Pedro, had retired from a life of piracy and, discovering Mary was a widow, brought her and her children to live in Henniker in a house that he himself built. One day, so the tale goes, Ocean-Born Mary saw her husband and one of his former co-pirates lug a large chest into her garden where they buried it. Later Don Pedro told Ocean-Born Mary that when he died she should bury him under the hearthstone together with the treasure contained in the chest. One year later Ocean-Born Mary is said to have found her husband dead in the garden, stabbed by a pirate’s cutlass. Ocean-Born Mary is then reputed to have fulfilled her husband’s wish of being buried with his treasure where it lies under the hearthstone to this day. The validity of this tale is extremely doubtful as Don Pedro would have been more than 100 years old by this stage and unlikely to be fit enough to build a house. Also the hearthstone would have been far too heavy for anyone to lift, especially an elderly lady as Ocean-Born Mary would have been at this time.
Roy began to show both locals and tourists around Robert Wallace’s old home (for a fee), all the while telling, and most probably embellishing, the life story of Ocean-Born Mary. When the United States was hit by the Depression, Roy found that the number of people willing to pay to visit Ocean-Born Mary’s supposed home was greatly reduced, and so he needed to create even taller tales surrounding her alleged haunting of his house. These tall tales included the claim that Ocean-Born Mary was buried under the house’s hearthstone, that she caused the house’s rocking chair to move, and that her ghost, tall, beautiful, and red-haired as she had been in life, had appeared to Roy many times, once to warn him of imminent danger. Some people also claimed to have seen Ocean-Born Mary’s ghost drive up to the front door of Roy’s house in a horse-driven coach. In the 1930s Roy was interviewed by a number of newspapers, and several press articles reported that the house he then owned was to be used variously as a film set and as the site of a treasure hunt during which stones would be removed from the house’s dungeon-like cellar. Roy is also reputed to have charged people fifty cents to rent a shovel to dig for Don Pedro’s treasure in his garden.
Later another important factor in bringing Ocean-Born Mary’s tale to the public was the 1939 publication of Lois Lenski’s book Ocean-Born Mary, which repeated many of the tales that surrounded Ocean-Born Mary. Another popular book about Ocean-Born Mary was Ghosts That Still Walk (1941) by Marion Lowndes that claimed at least seven people had seen Ocean-Born Mary’s apparition.
Roy died in 1965, and the property was sold. However, so many visitors came to the property looking for anything connected to Ocean-Born Mary that it became necessary for the house and its occupants to receive police protection. The new owners went to the local press to declare that Ocean-Born Mary did not haunt their home and never had. However, even today the idea that Ocean-Born Mary haunts Robert’s Henniker house persists. This house still stands and is sometimes referred to as Ocean-Born Mary’s house.
Victoria Williams
See also Haunted Houses; LaLaurie House; McPike Mansion; Myrtles Plantation; Stanley Hotel; Whaley House
Further Reading
D’Agostin, Thomas. 2007. Haunted New Hampshire. Atglen, PA: Schiffer.
D’Entremont, Jeremy. 2011. Ocean-Born Mary: The Truth Behind a New Hampshire Legend. Charleston, SC: History Press.
Flanders, Alice V. “Ocean Born Mary.” Henniker Historical Society website. http://www.hennikerhistory.org/obmary.htm. Accessed July 5, 2015.
Gauthier, Norm. 1988. Norm Gauthier’s Guide to New Hampshire “Haunted” Places You Can Visit! Hollis, NH: Puritan Press.
Schlosser, S. E. 2014. “Ocean Born Mary: A New Hampshire Ghost Story.” American Folklore website. December 13. http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/2010/07/oceanborn_mary.html. Accessed July 5, 2015.