Ocean Born Mary Gravesite and Homestead

The second stop on our haunted hike day was the grave site of Ocean Born Mary.

The legend of Ocean Born Mary is mostly a tall tale that involves pirates, treasure, and hauntings in her home. Unfortunately, many of the tails were fabricated but still made for a fun story to share around the fireplace.

Mary Wallace was born to Scotch immigrants that were making their way to America in 1720. She was born off the coast of Boston on a ship, hence the name Ocean Born Mary.

The story goes, that the same day she was born, the ship was taken over by pirates. When the pirates heard the crying of a newborn, the pirates said they would spare the lives of all those on the ship if they named the baby Mary. Of course, the mother agreed. The pirate also gave her a length of green silk to be used on her wedding day.

Mary did marry and had 5 sons. In later years she eventually moved in with one of her sons in their Henniker home.

Years later Louis Roy, a man from Wisconsin came to Henniker looking for a house with a story and purchased the home Mary lived in for years. As time passed Mr. Roy fabricated some of the stories about Mary, and used them to profit from visitors.

He would tell them that Mary’s ghost could still be seen haunting the house and that there was pirate treasure buried somewhere on the property. He would rent them shoves to go out and search for it.

We started out looking for Mary’s gravestone in a cemetery near New England College in Henniker. Once we found the cemetery (Friends Cemetery) it was not long before we located her gravesite. There is something about old gravestones that are interesting to me. I loved walking this graveyard.

From here we made our way to the house Mary lived in and later purchased by Mr. Roy. In some of our research we saw a memorial stone sitting Infront of the house. Upon our arrival we saw a number of private property and no trespassing signs. It also appeared that the stone marking the house has been removed. No doubt due to people trespassing.

We were respectful and did not set foot on the property but did walk the road a bit and took a few pictures. According to some research, Louis Roy is buried on the property somewhere. I wonder if his ghost is haunting the home these days?