Ocean Born Mary: Ghost or Legend

Paranormal Stories: Beware! Some are merely Folk Tales or Hoaxes

Jul 17, 2007

Ocean Born Mary was a real person. Gus Roy created a ghostly hoax involving romance, pirates and buried treasure. There are still those who believe this alleged haunting

Ocean Born Mary: Historical Facts

Mary was born to James and Elizabeth Fulton, Scotch-Irish immigrants, on July 28, 1720 aboard a ship. Pirates attacked the vessel. She was a tall redhead and wore silk given or sold to her by a pirate when she wed James Wallace in 1742. They had four children. James died when he was eighty-one. The three sons and their wives had moved to Henniker, New Hampshire. Mary relocated there and lived with her son, William, until her death in 1814. She was ninety-four.

The Henniker Historical Society’s Museum had a fragment of the green brocade silk from the gown Mary was married in on display.

Variations: Legends

The pirate was either Don Pedro or Phillip Babb who heard the baby cry and said he would spare the lives of all aboard the ship if the Fultons would name her Mary, after his mother. They agreed. The privateer returned to the ship with a bolt of green brocade silk for her wedding gown. Babb and a Don Pedro Gilbert existed.

One legend is that the pirate built a house near Mary’s and hired her as his housekeeper. In another version, he married her. Some claim Wallace was a pirate.

According to one legend, the privateer and a crew member buried a treasure chest in the yard. Mary heard groans. The sailor was never again seen. One day Mary arrived home in her coach-and-four and found Don Pedro dead, killed with a cutlass. Mary buried his body in a stone slab in the kitchen. The slab exists. According to this version, she died in the house.

In 1917 Louis M. A. AKA Gus Roy and his mother wanted to buy a house in New Hampshire with an interesting past. A mailman suggested an eerie looking house that was owned by Mary’s son, Roger.

Roy had a scheme to make money and invented the legend of Ocean Born Mary. His tours of the house were successful.

He and his mother claimed they saw and communicated with ghosts. Mary helped Roy close a barn door in a storm. They heard the groans of the slain sailor. A coach-and-four was seen. Mrs. Roy averred a medium contacted Don Pedro’s spirit to find the gold. He replied he hid it; she could find it.

Ghostly Legend Perpetuates as True

Author Hans Holzer has written about the hoax as a true case. While some of his parapsychology writings are excellent, he writes about subjects that are not of this realm. He has also resorts to fiction. He claims to have a PhD, no subject given, from the London College of Applied Science. The school exists, but offers no degree in any subject close to parapsychology. Holzer claims to teach at the New York Institute of Technology, no subject given. The degrees offered by the institution do not include parapsychology.

Lorraine and the late Ed Warren, self-proclaimed “parapsychologists” and “exorcists”, in most people’s opinions, dubious, at best, and debunked by parapsychologists, claim Roy, gave them a tour of Roger’s house. Lorraine said she had an out of body experience, floating about over the men. The Warrens base their claim to fame on the Amityville horror which was totally discredited by parapsychologists. They also tell the hoax as factual.

Recent owners of the house have tried to debunk the folk tale in order to discourage curiosity seekers, psychic wannabes/neverweres, treasure hunters and vandals, but the hoax is still perpetuated as a true ghost story.