Legendary CT: The Headless Horseman of Canton

ONE BRIGHT FALL morning in 1777, a lone French horseman departed from Hartford, headed toward Saratoga, New York, by way of the Hartford-Albany post road. At Saratoga, a rag-tag American army led by Benedict Arnold and Horatio Gates, along with several units of French troops, was at that time laying siege to a superior force of British regulars and Hessian mercenaries under General John Burgoyne. Since the French were sticklers for paying their soldiers on time and in cash, the rider's mission was very important to his superiors: he was to deliver the silver and gold packed in two heavy saddlebags -- the month's payroll for French officers at Saratoga -- to the army in the field, as quickly as possible.
The sky was starless when he reined in his mount at the Horsford Tavern in Canton, where he planned to spend his first night on the road. He stayed for a while in the tap room, chatting with the "barnacles" who always hung out there, yarning and gossiping. Then, saddlebags under his arms, he climbed the stairs to the sleeping quarters. That was the last anyone would ever see of the paymaster or the payroll.
As soon as it was apparent that the courier would not arrive in Saratoga, the French authorities launched an investigation into his whereabouts. Tracing his journey as far as Canton was easy enough, but there the trail unaccountably ended. Although the tavern owner insisted that the Frenchman had departed "safe and sound" early the next morning, it was, as one Canton historian put it, "probably heavenward, for no evidence of lateral travel was ever found." However, there was no more proof that he was dead than that he was still alive. The Frenchman and his payroll had simply vanished!
Naturally, there was a strong suspicion that a murder and robbery had taken place, and that the tavern-keeper was the one who had killed the paymaster for his gold. Yet, despite the rather unsavory reputation of the suspected man, nothing whatsoever was turned up to link him -- or anyone else -- with a crime. So, as time passed, interest in the paymaster's fate waned, the Americans took Saratoga, the unpaid French officers went on to other campaigns and Canton gradually settled back to normal, after all the excitement.
Not until many years later, following a fire which burned the Horsford Tavern to the foundation, was new interest in the old mystery sparked -- by a grisly and disturbing discovery. There in the smoldering ashes of the hostelry, searchers found the bleached bones of a human skeleton, complete, except for the skull! Although no one would ever make a positive identification of the body, most of the folks living around Canton were pretty well convinced that the grim find had finally closed the books on the case of the missing French paymaster.
It wasn't long, however, before their convictions turned to certainty. A reliable Yankee farmer excitedly reported seeing the ghastly phantom of a headless horseman ride out of the mists of the Farmington River valley and head west along the old Hartford-Albany post road, his cape flowing out behind him and his horse's eyes ablaze with a strange light. This was only the first of a number of sightings of the headless rider over the years, with each witness breathlessly recounting the same details: the horseman always galloping west at a furious pace, along the same dark stretch of road; the flowing cape; the horse's bright, wild eyes; the observers' horses shying or bolting at the sight of the spectral figures.
Even in modern times, the headless horseman rides, frightening motorists along Canton's rural roads, sometimes even causing a startled driver to veer into a ditch to avoid "hitting" the frantic phantom. They always say that the beams of their car's headlights shone right through horse and rider, making them almost invisible, until, suddenly, car and horseman seemed about to collide. They never do, of course. No, folks in these parts have simply resigned themselves to the sight of the hapless French paymaster eternally riding toward Saratoga with his precious payroll, even though he was clearly unable to keep his head about him.

from Legendary Connecticut by David E. Philips / ISBN 1-880684-05-5 / $17.95

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