About Stowe's Gold Brook Bridge

 

January 29, 2002

Dear Mr. Nelson: I've been meaning to try and contact someone about this information for a year now, since my husband and I visited Stowe, Vermont last January 2001. I really didn't know who to contact though, until I read this article in our local newspaper about covered bridges. The article mentioned the atawalk website which is how I found your name.

While visiting Stowe we went on a "Lantern Walk" one evening and the gentleman guiding the walk was a teacher at the local high school. He told us some "spooky stories" while on the walk and the last one was told in the local graveyard while our lanterns were surrounding Emily's grave-site. He told us the story of Emily and Goldbrook Bridge and of many unusual circumstances surrounding the bridge. One of which was the fact that many visitors that had taken pictures of the bridge found that the pictures came back blank or black after developing.

Well of course my husband and I had to visit the bridge and of course took pictures. It was rather spooky when the pictures came back from the developers, with all of the bridge pictures having distortions of colour in them. Particularly since the bridge pictures were in the middle of the roll. The ones before and after them were perfect.

But this is not the end of our information and in fact the best is yet to come. I showed these pictures to many people and of course all were intrigued with our story. But one weekend a university friend of mine asked if we wouldn't mind having a visit from an autistic young gentleman that she was tutoring. During the visit I was showing my friend these pictures and the autistic young man was listening intently but did appear to become quite agitated when I told the story of Emily. He did not generally speak much but tended to blurt hesitant words out at times, sometimes pertaining to what you were talking about and sometimes not. He was very quiet after the Emily story though. We were all sitting around the fire awhile later that evening, when out of nowhere he blurted out "woman". We all stared at him and my friend said to him "What woman?" He became quite agitated again and so she asked again "What woman?" He said "Story". My friend said "You mean Emily". He became very agitated and said "Yes-yes-yes-pregnant" My friend looked at him incredulously and said "Emily was pregnant". He said "Yes". And all of a sudden the agitation stopped and he seemed totally at peace.

We live in Canada in a little place called Wellandport. We had never met this autistic gentleman before that day. But somehow we had to wonder if possibly Emily was finally at peace. Finally the true story behind her gruesome death was now known. We wonder whether Goldbrook's Bridge is possibly no longer "haunted" by the memory of Emily. Since now the truth be known.

If you know who the teacher is that guides the Lantern Walks in Stowe we would greatly appreciate if you forwarded this information to him. Or if you could find out who he is, then we could give this information to him ourselves. Possibly if he is still guiding the Lantern Walks, he can tell others this story and then Emily will be at rest. Through the words of an autistic young man in Canada, many many miles away and many, many years later.

Dianne and Alex Carlassara
6904 Elcho Road R.R. #3
Wellandport, Ontario, Canada L0R 2J0