Stop #2 on our East Haddam Mystery Tour map finds us trekking inland from Connecticut River along Rt 82 and Rt 434 (Mt. Parnassus Millington Road) up to Hopyard Road. Here we find another wonderful watershed called the Eightmile River which runs through our own Devil's Hopyard!
During college, I spent a few years in Western Connecticut doing a deep dive in archaeology and geology. I was blessed to work with Dr. Ernest Wiegand who had a penchant for history, home-grown hot peppers, and Tom Waites. He would not let anyone dig with him unless they loved all three. I did. I think that fact earned me a sincere crush. It also earned me the honor of working on the Professor's archeology dig team for three years. I was the only female and it was grueling, dirty, and sweaty work. It was also my favorite job ever.
We had one simple mission: determine if sites held Indigenous or settler significance and if so, slow down proposed development until artifacts could be extracted. The stories of Professor Ernie and those digs is for another time. They are epic.
Though I dug with him on the eastern Hudson River coastline border nestled between New York and Connecticut, Professor Ernie spoke about the amazing natural sites of eastern Connecticut. These remote locations hosted great archeological finds and quite a few 'give you chills' ghost stories.
It was the Professor that first told me about Devil's Hopyard and its creepy tales and trails. He encouraged me if I ever had the chance to go park my car on Hopyard Road after sunset, I should. He warned me the Devil himself might be heard laughing out in the woods. As we discussed the site and the history of the name, it dawned on me how industrious the Devil had been in the region.
Since the 17th century, the Devil has been leaving his hoofprints, claw marks, and bones all over Connecticut. From dens to coves, hills to groves, find me a nook of Connecticut that has not been touched by the 'Old Goat Foot' getting up to no good.
In 2007, decades after sweaty college digs and while I was forming CGHOSTS (Connecticut Ghost History of Shoreline Towns), fate would unearth my draw to Devil's Hopyard once again.
That year, I, met a couple who would become two of my dearest friends, Kimberly, and Larry.
Like myself, Kimberly has a lifelong passion for supernatural topics and has a strange knack for dreaming about major airplane disasters before they happen. Having grown up in Deep River, another haunted town just across the Connecticut River from me, it is no surprise spooky stories imprinted on her. From the the dusty haunted shelves of the Deep River Library (which CGHOSTS was lucky enough to investigate) to the mysterious XYZ grave, Deep River is well worth a visit if you enjoy haunted tourism.
Kimberly's husband Lawrence also loves to talk anything out of the box as well as civil war history and music. He was almost abducted by reptilian aliens when he was a teenager and witnessed a UFO sighting on a Connecticut backroad in the seventies. Sure, he told me these recollections over a few bottles of Cabernet, but considering the guy served in the FBI for thirty years, I believe him.
No, he doesn't have acces to Roswell files. Forget your question, I've already asked.
But, it turns out, it was Devil's Hopyard that the two got engaged in the very same year Professor Ernie was encouraging me to head up there to meet Satan. I often wonder had I gone if I would have run into this couple running around with champagne and a shiny new diamond ring. I have no doubt we would have clicked and shared our knowledge of the strange occurrences reported in the Hopyard for centuries.
They described it to me as "beautiful, secluded, and a totally different feel during the day then towards sunset. It gets creepy up there when the light fades behind the hills." This description was a corroboration of what Professor Ernie had told me. They also shared that everyone goes up there to see the holes in the stones that were supposedly made by Satan's feet while he sat atop the glacial boulders, played his fiddle, and stomped his foot hard enough to leave deep impressions. Now, having studied geology, I knew these holes were made from water, and possibly even from glacial ice grinding into them, but I preferred imagining Old Nick up there with fiddle in hand stomping away.
Could that roar be the Moodus noises reported too? Each stomp causing a thunderous reverberation in the river valley that the locals feared when they heard it?
More lore claims the Indigenous tribal peoples who inhabited the area were observed performing mysterious rituals at these kettle holes filled with water. Convinced all Indigenous peoples were in league with the Devil, the religious settlers would have been quick to deem the area cursed or haunted.
Armed with a name that deserves such speculation, The Devil's Hopyard State Park is reported to be one of the more haunted locations in Connecticut. Unsuspecting visitors and thrill seekers alike have reported hearing disembodied voices, shrill screams, seeing apparitions and dark human like shadows. There is also a ghostly mist that eerily moves against the breeze and can be seen floating down trails and around the waterfall. Some still report on occasion they see a devil like figure with horns and a tail up on the falls still playing his fiddle.
I now live five miles east of the Hopyard and have ventured in their many times. Each time I do, I have a private silent chat with Professor Ernie wherever he may be thanking him for his ghost stories.
He was not wrong. The particular trails of Devil's Hopyard do have an odd feel to them. I too have had some odd experiences inside the Hopyard. One afternoon as I walked east away from the waterfall I found myself turning around constantly, feeling as though I was being followed. I could hear pebbles and dirt being scuffed right behind me and what sounded like whispering on and off in my ear. Even the way the wind moved through the trees seemed eerie. My hiking partner was also spooked hearing the same sounds, feeling watched, and at one point felt as though someone had touched him on the shoulder. No matter how often we looked, noone was anywhere near us on that trail.
Though there is a lot of lore around the source of The Devil's Hopyard name, there is one story that sticks with me the most. Legend has it that a local wild farmer who lived near the falls was known for making malt and moonshine from the hops that grew nearby. He used the water from the river and falls to help with distillation.
Imagine deep in the Connecticut woods, long before there was electricity or modern transit, a woods and waterfall only lit by starlight and fire. This wildman's brew was likely known for making folks feel better. It would have naturally been a painkiller. So folks willing to venture into the woods came to see him for a cure. Maybe on a few full moon evenings, when the woods would have been easier to traverse, a few villagers walked into see the old wildman and purchase some of his moonshine.
Perhaps he had a fiddle and while his customers tested and tasted his strong brew, he played tunes for them. Following the inevitable intoxication and lifting of their pain, they began to dance around the woods and the waterfall. Now, getting a little too hot from all that frolicking, they shed their clothes and dive into the moonlit pools at their feet. Watching them in joy, the Wildman laughs loudly and continues to play fiddle high above them on a boulder. Below, the locals grow more loud and daring the drunker they get.
Just outside of these woods, imagine the other locals - the churchgoing, God-fearing folk hearing all this raucous nearby. Rushing in armed with lanterns and bibles, they come across the scene of debauchery around the waterfall and immediately presume it is the Devil himself. There he is playing that fiddle by the full moon and entrancing his minions into despicable, forbidden sacrilegious acts of naked drinking, dancing, and swimming. I have no doubt they would have witnessed some other shared pleasures of the flesh as well.
That could happen. I mean, if you have ever drunk moonshine, you really can see how that could happen!
Deeply afraid of what they have witnessed, the devout run back to their homes, lock their doors, and fall to their knees in prayer warding off the devil in the hopyard who is possessing their neighbors.
This tale is my favorite of the namesaking of The Devil's Hopyard. There is one other but it ties into our last stop on the East Haddam Mystery Tour- The Millington Curse (Icon #13).
If you make your way out to Devil's Hopyard, I recommend always doing so with an offering of a bit of hoppy beer or a little nip of moonshine. I also recommend some hot peppers to eat and Tom Waites playing in your earbuds. When you make your offering to the waterfall, be sure to give thanks to the Indigenous tribes, village settlers, local residents, professors of folklore, and tourists just passing through, that have all had claw and hoof in this legend. Their legends become our mysteries to chase.
And if you see the ole' Hopyard Devil, well, I hope he plays you a tune worth frolicking naked to ; )
Happy Haunted Trekking!
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