Black Aggie is the name given to Eduard Pausch’s infamous 1905 statue of a shrouded figure that was once placed on the grave of General Felix Agnus in Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville, Maryland. Black Aggie is the subject of many urban legends and was the focus of the final report of the Study Commission on Maryland Folklife in 1970.
Black Aggie is an unauthorized replica of Augustus St. Gaudens’s 1891 allegorical statue known as Grief, which is located at the Adams Memorial in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Black Aggie became the focus of a number of urban legends shortly after it was placed in Druid Ridge Cemetery in 1926. The most celebrated of the urban legends warns that anyone who spends the night lying in the statue’s lap will either die of fright, be squeezed to death by the statue’s arms and then dragged down to hell, or be haunted for eternity by the ghosts of those buried in the cemetery. During the 1950s Black Aggie became the site of strange rituals as local teens and fraternity members used the statue as the location for a number of initiation rituals that saw college boys spend the night sitting in Black Aggie’s lap. Over time Black Aggie became the site of teen dares, which added to the aura of fear surrounding the statue. There were several anecdotal reports of the cemetery workers opening the graveyard in the morning and discovering the corpses of teenage boys who had been foolish enough to sit on Black Aggie. Similarly, it is said that it is possible to hear Black Aggie’s heartbeat, if one were to sit in Black Aggie’s lap and place an ear against “her” chest.
The subject of much local folklore and numerous urban legends, Black Aggie is the popular name of Eduard Pausch’s infamous 1905 statue of a shrouded figure that was once placed on the grave of General Felix Agnus in Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville, Maryland. The subject of many an unauthorized teen foray into the graveyard at night, Black Aggie was in fact an unauthorized copy of Grief (depicted in this image) by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907), which is located at the Adams Memorial of Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, DC. (Library of Congress)
Other stories revolving around Black Aggie include reports that the statue emits a terrible scream accompanied by the sound of clanking chains, stories of children being struck dumb after visiting the statue at night, and instances of boys’ hair turning gray overnight after they touched the statue. Even the surrounding grass is said to wither if it falls under Black Aggie’s shadow. Many claim that the statue becomes animated at night, either that it physically moves from its plinth or that its eyes begin glowing with a reddish light. These sinister features make Black Aggie the ideal rendezvous site for the ghosts of the deceased buried nearby. Some locals believe that the statue was actually erected to commemorate the death of a girl who was raped and believe that any girl who sits in Black Aggie’s lap will lose her virginity within twenty-four hours of venturing near the statue. Similarly, pregnant women are warned not to sit in Black Aggie’s lap lest they should suffer a miscarriage.
During the 1970s, many rumors circulated that teenagers had been discovered murdered or maimed at the base of Black Aggie, apparently killed or injured by the statue itself. Over time, the custom arose among Baltimore children not to dare utter the name of Black Aggie in case the statue came to life, hid under their beds, and emerged at night with the intention of scaring them to death. Of course many would tempt fate; Baltimore children and teens often dared each other to say the name Black Aggie three times while standing in the dark with their eyes shut. It was told that upon opening them, they would be face to face with the statue.
Two main theories have been proposed to explain the source of Black Aggie’s supernatural malevolence. One rather prosaic theory is that Black Aggie’s curse is a form of supernatural retribution for Pausch’s theft of intellectual property. St. Gaudens’s widow, upon learning that Black Aggie was an unlicensed reproduction of Grief, traveled to the Agnus’s family burial plot and threatened to sue unless the statue was removed. However, General Agnus is reputed to have refused, claiming that Pausch had deceived him into buying a replica. A more macabre theory is that Black Aggie became cursed after a brutal husband murdered his wife and buried her under the statue.
The proliferation of urban legends surrounding Black Aggie led to a great deal of unwelcome attention being directed toward the statue. This included people breaking into the cemetery during the night to see if Black Aggie’s eyes really did glow red, and often vandalizing the statue’s pedestal with graffiti. The family of General Agnus (who died on Halloween in 1925) became so concerned by the attention directed at Black Aggie that in 1967 they donated the statue to the Smithsonian Institution of Fine Arts. However, the Smithsonian deemed the statue an unauthorized copy unfit for public exhibition.
After the Smithsonian determined that Black Aggie was unsuitable for display, the statue was placed under a staircase in the museum’s basement where it remained for many years before being moved to the National Courts Building in Washington, D.C. Here the statue was installed in a courtyard for some time before being moved to its present location adjacent to the Dolley Madison House on Lafayette Square. Today, rather than crushing people, Black Aggie is said to decapitate or stab the unwary using garden shears.
Victoria Williams
See also Supernaturalism in Legends and Folklore
Further Reading
Blank, Trevor J., and David J. Puglia. 2014. Maryland Legends: Folklore from the Old Line State. Charleston, SC: History Press.
Mills, Cynthia J. 2000. “Casting Shadows: The ‘Adams Memorial’ and Its Doubles.” American Art 14 (2): 2–25.
Okonowicz, Ed. 2007. Haunted Maryland: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Old Line State. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books.
Okonowicz, Ed. 2012. Monsters of Maryland: Mysterious Creatures in the Old Line State. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books.