Stories from Old House Woods, Part III
The community surrounding the Old House Woods in Mathews County, Virginia is rife with tales of mysterious appearances and disappearances which have never been satisfactorily explained. These stories involve both humans and animals. Our friend Harry Forrest spoke passionately about this in 1951:
"It was near 100 years ago that Lock Owens and Pidge Morgan came through these woods with their steer, on the way back from a cattle auction, and nothing's been seen of 'em since. Steer, carts, and everything disappeared in there. Lock had a little black dog and the only thing that was ever found of it was a little bunch of hair off of that dog's tail.
There used to be a lot of cattle down on these points, but they got to wandering in here and never came out. Everything that comes in here heads for the Old Cow Hole and disappears. It's very strange. One night that Old Cow Hole will be covered with water, the next it's dry. Some night it'll be light enough to pick up a pin in these woods, and black and storming outside. And sometimes, you'll come in here and it'll be pouring down. You get wringing, soaking wet, you can wipe the water off you. And then you come out and you'll be perfectly dry."
Perhaps the story of Owens and Morgan explains why there have been numerous reports of headless cattle wandering around in the woods.
Harry Forrest once took a newspaperman to see Old Cow Hole. The reporter described it as a small circular pool of gray water, which seemed to swirl, yet was dead still. Forrest believed that Old Cow Hole is where the legendary money was buried by one or all of the groups mentioned in the earlier sections of this story. He also believed that someone was killed and buried along with the treasure, to 'guard' it.
Speaking of headless animals, another well-known tale from Old House Woods concerns a farmer's wife who lived adjacent to the woods. One evening at dusk she went into a pasture to bring home the work horses. After driving them down the lane to the gate, she called to her husband to open it. He didn't answer right away, so she did it herself. As she did, her husband came out of the barn and laughed at her, saying he had put the team in the barn two hours earlier. "Don't be foolish!" she said, and when she turned to lead the team through the gate, instead of the two horses she saw two headless black dogs running back toward the Old House Woods. "That woman was my great grandmother," says Olivia Davis today. More recent reports claim that these headless dogs like to pursue moving vehicles passing through the woods, and have even been known to try to jump onto cars or into the beds of pickup trucks.
A tragic tale is told of a local fisherman named Tom Pipkin who lived nearby around 1880. Excited by the rumors of buried or sunken treasure, he took his small boat into the woods, following an old channel thought to be cut by pirates two hundred years earlier, heading for Old Cow Hole. Several days later his boat was found in the Bay. Inside were two gold coins of unknown age and a battered silver cup covered with slime and mud. One coin bore a Roman head, and the letters 'I V V S' were distinguishable. No one would claim Pipkin's boat and it was left on nearby Gwynn's Island where it rotted away. Tom Pipkin was never seen or heard from again.
"A thousand people have been in here after that money, but they'll never get it," said Harry Forrest. "The trees start bending double and howling. It storms. And they get scared and take off. The woods is haunted....that's what it is."
Maybe so. But one thing is for sure. Any being who ventures into Old House Woods, by land or by water, whether they be human or animal, may very well be disappearing into another time. They will probably return, with or without a story to tell. But there may be a small chance that they will become stuck in its strange alternate dimension and take their place among the ranks of the long dead, but not forgotten, denizens of Old House Woods.
"It was near 100 years ago that Lock Owens and Pidge Morgan came through these woods with their steer, on the way back from a cattle auction, and nothing's been seen of 'em since. Steer, carts, and everything disappeared in there. Lock had a little black dog and the only thing that was ever found of it was a little bunch of hair off of that dog's tail.
There used to be a lot of cattle down on these points, but they got to wandering in here and never came out. Everything that comes in here heads for the Old Cow Hole and disappears. It's very strange. One night that Old Cow Hole will be covered with water, the next it's dry. Some night it'll be light enough to pick up a pin in these woods, and black and storming outside. And sometimes, you'll come in here and it'll be pouring down. You get wringing, soaking wet, you can wipe the water off you. And then you come out and you'll be perfectly dry."
Perhaps the story of Owens and Morgan explains why there have been numerous reports of headless cattle wandering around in the woods.
Harry Forrest once took a newspaperman to see Old Cow Hole. The reporter described it as a small circular pool of gray water, which seemed to swirl, yet was dead still. Forrest believed that Old Cow Hole is where the legendary money was buried by one or all of the groups mentioned in the earlier sections of this story. He also believed that someone was killed and buried along with the treasure, to 'guard' it.
Speaking of headless animals, another well-known tale from Old House Woods concerns a farmer's wife who lived adjacent to the woods. One evening at dusk she went into a pasture to bring home the work horses. After driving them down the lane to the gate, she called to her husband to open it. He didn't answer right away, so she did it herself. As she did, her husband came out of the barn and laughed at her, saying he had put the team in the barn two hours earlier. "Don't be foolish!" she said, and when she turned to lead the team through the gate, instead of the two horses she saw two headless black dogs running back toward the Old House Woods. "That woman was my great grandmother," says Olivia Davis today. More recent reports claim that these headless dogs like to pursue moving vehicles passing through the woods, and have even been known to try to jump onto cars or into the beds of pickup trucks.
A tragic tale is told of a local fisherman named Tom Pipkin who lived nearby around 1880. Excited by the rumors of buried or sunken treasure, he took his small boat into the woods, following an old channel thought to be cut by pirates two hundred years earlier, heading for Old Cow Hole. Several days later his boat was found in the Bay. Inside were two gold coins of unknown age and a battered silver cup covered with slime and mud. One coin bore a Roman head, and the letters 'I V V S' were distinguishable. No one would claim Pipkin's boat and it was left on nearby Gwynn's Island where it rotted away. Tom Pipkin was never seen or heard from again.
"A thousand people have been in here after that money, but they'll never get it," said Harry Forrest. "The trees start bending double and howling. It storms. And they get scared and take off. The woods is haunted....that's what it is."
Maybe so. But one thing is for sure. Any being who ventures into Old House Woods, by land or by water, whether they be human or animal, may very well be disappearing into another time. They will probably return, with or without a story to tell. But there may be a small chance that they will become stuck in its strange alternate dimension and take their place among the ranks of the long dead, but not forgotten, denizens of Old House Woods.
The stories of Old House Woods have been brought to you with the assistance of L.B. Taylor's delightful publication, The Ghosts of Virginia, Volume I (of many!)
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(the sound of wind blowing constantly, through pine trees and marsh grass)