Anyone with even a passing interest in urban legends and folklore will know that ghost bride stories (especially in the U.S., which I am most familiar with) are a dime a dozen. Certainly there are some practical reasons for this–white wedding dresses double nicely as ghostly attire, so anyone seeing a pale apparition is likely to think “bride” (though I guess they could also think “guest wearing a hotel robe” and or “toga-sporting frat bro”). But I suspect the root of all these legends goes deeper than that. Weddings are extremely emotionally charged. More pointedly, weddings are (according to historical sexist assumption) extremely emotionally charged for women, since of course we could have no other goal in life other than to get married and pop out babies. Frustrated emotions are a great recipe for hauntings. Add in some more sexist stuff about women being more ~mysterious~ and ~emotional~, thus being more ghost-like even in life, and it’s not a shocker that ghost bride legends grow like weeds.
That these legends are so common (and so irritating in their implications) is why I have ignored them on this blog so far (except for a passing story here). But having recently been a bride myself (#COVIDwedding), I figured that it was about time that I gave one a shot.
Seatbelts: You gotta wear ’em
Okay, so this legend is also pretty typical in that it starts out with a car crash.
Marcellus, New York is a little town not far from Syracuse, with a population of about 6,200. It’s a scenic area full of hills, valleys, and winding, winding roads (I once ate Burger King on a road trip down one of these roads, and regretted it bitterly). The windiest of these is Cedarville Road, an unlit, rapidly twisting mile of asphalt through thick woods that has earned the moniker of “the 13 curves.”
Regardless of how you feel about the veracity of ghost stories, this road can legitimately be dangerous. A woman died there in a 1941 collision, and 2 more girls died in 1959 when their toboggan slid onto the road and met with a station wagon. The officer responding to that scene had trouble standing up straight, the road was so icy. Even discounting weather conditions and the fact that the road is infamously dark, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that quick switchbacks + speeding cars can equal disaster.
Naturally, such a disaster is said to have befallen our veil-toting protagonist, sometime between 1900s and today. The legends vary, but generally speaking say that a buggy, car, or motorcycle was carrying newlyweds down Cedarville Road when, around the 6th curve, the husband lost control of the vehicle. It spun out and smashed into the creek, killing the bride, groom, or both. Regardless of who died when, the groom didn’t see fit to stick around. But the bride sure did.
Why did the ghost bride cross the road?
The script for 13 Curves bride sightings varies as much as the origin legends, but the most basic follows the experience of Msmarymac, who relates what happened when they were driving down the expanse of road one night with a friend:
“While making our way around the sixth curve, a dim glowing white shape appeared in the road ahead of us. It slowly made its way from the left side of the road to the right. When it got right in the middle of the road, it stopped and turned towards us. It was about the height of an average woman, but it was not very well defined––it was more of a staticy blur than a clear image. It did have a red glow up near where the head would approximately be on a human being.
I slowed the car to a near halt, amazed at what I was seeing. “Do you––“ I started to ask.
“Yeah, this is nuts,” my friend responded before I could even finish the question.
Just after our exchange, the shape darted to the right, off the side of the road, disappearing. We hightailed it out of there.”
There are also fun tales of people checking their rearview mirror out of habit, only to find a blood-covered woman staring at them from the back seat. That alone is enough to cause someone to crash, but 13 Curves bride also enjoys darting out at random into the road. Some say that her goal is to make an already dangerous road more, trying to create crashes so that others can suffer as she has.
The woman of your dreams
So we know that at least 3 people have died on Cedarville Road. Is there evidence of a couple dying there as well? Something other than hearsay on which we can base this story?
In short, no. The William G. Pomeroy Foundation highlights that while we have written histories of the other deaths, nothing shows up about the demise of a newlywed couple, which is odd since something as juicy as that would have surely made the news. Their article suggests that the whole thing can be traced back to a deliberate hoax, wherein a local woman wanted to get back at some “smart aleck” teenagers. She enlisted the help of her daughter to dress as the bride, and then drove the teens down the 13 Curves and scared the bejeezus out of them.
But that doesn’t seem to matter. Regardless of how little the 13 Curves bride legend is based in reality, it continues to have legs. People flock to the road at night in an attempt to see the ghost, particularly around Halloween. Locals seemingly do as much as they can to encourage them. A sign sits at the top of the road telling the bride’s story, and homeowners near it set up frighteningly realistic decorations that look like the bride, even dressing up as her themselves to see if they can’t scare some passerby.
You yourself could go on a drive to see the ghost this Halloween–it’s a socially-distanced activity perfect for the whole family. 👌 Even if there was no ghost to begin with, who’s to say our collective subconscious hasn’t brought some shade to life?
Collect them all! What is your favorite ghost bride story? Anyone know of any that actually involve a ghost groom (I Googled for that in vain)? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
PHOTO CRED: Strong Unsplash representation this month; a big thanks for the not-technically-the-road-but-a-road by Lauren Coleman on Unsplash and creepiest-Creative-Commons-bride-I-could-find-that-was-not-a-zombie by Joel Overbeck on Unsplash. Also Vino Li for the featured image.
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