M Thomas Apple Author Page

I wrote some time ago that there was a ghost in the family.

I guess it’s finally time to write about it. Sorry for the wait! Maybe I should hold off on this until Hallowe’en…

Abigail Platte (or Platt) of New Milford, Connecticut, married William Barber West of Rhode Island in or just before 1783. They then set out for what is now Queensbury, New York, to start a farm and a family. Eventually, they had six children, one of which whose daughter would marry into the Langworthy family (my mother’s maiden name; hence Abigail is her 3x-great grandmother).

What happened in August of 1811 is somewhat of a conjecture, and I have not been able to track down any sources other than the story posted on the City of Glens Falls web site (which erroneously claims the incident occurred in May). Apparently, she was up on the mountain (probably where the family’s potato farm was) when a storm arose. She took shelter under a tree, which, as you all know from elementary school firefighter training sessions, is a bad idea. The tree was hit by lightning and fell on top of her.

Badly wounded, she crawled for a mile down the mountain, looking for help. Too late. She died. (Some online blogs claim her body wasn’t found “for weeks,” which seems unlikely).

Other local versions of the Legend of Abby West claim she was directly hit by lightning, or that her body was inside her house and her spirit was wandering when the house caught on fire. In these versions, her body is never found – because she was a witch.

But the witch stories didn’t start until much later, well after her family actually buried her. When her descendants moved their family cemetery plot years later, they couldn’t find her body under her stone. So only her stone was moved to its current resting place, and from then, the “witch” stories began.

Local legend says that she comes back every night to haunt her old home, of which only the fireplace and chimney have survived, looking for her children, most of whom left the area with her husband. Some people say the air feels “dense” near there. Others have claimed that doors randomly shut and sewing machines randomly start up. One group of teenagers visited her ruined house and videoed what they claim are fires starting up in the fireplace.

Whether there is a Ghost of West Mountain or not, one thing is certain: the family had so many descendants that the mountain was named after them. In fact, it has one of the most well-known outdoor recreation resorts of Upstate, named simply, of course, West Mountain. #RIP Abigail, Queensbury’s “Blair Witch.”