Episode 163: The Cursed Brunswick Springs
Photo by Chad Abramovich
The Brunswick Springs in Brunswick, Vermont were once called “The Eighth Wonder of the World” by Robert Ripley, the very same Ripley of Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Brunswick is a very small town in Northeast Kingdom not too far from the Canadian border and from the state line into New Hampshire. The population is roughly 100. The Brunswick Springs are described as a geographical anomaly where six springs, all with completely different mineral contents (iron, calcium, magnesium, white sulfer, bromide, and arsenic) come out of a single spot before eventually flowing into the Connecticut River.
The springs are seen as healing waters on sacred land, and specifically the Abenaki would trek long distances to the springs for “the medicine waters of the great Spirit”. The Abenaki would only go during the day, as they felt the springs and the surrounding lands had a dark side and believed in honoring the land and only taking what they needed to not tip that balance. Near the springs is Silver Lake, which the Abenaki said was bottomless and reflected spirits of past Native Americans. There’s also rumors that the Roger’s Rangers soldiers hid some of their treasure near the lake and the springs and never made it back to retrieve it as they got lost and froze to death in the forest.
In 1748, the first documented account of the spring’s magical healing powers, the Abenaki helped an injured British soldier to the springs from Lake Memphremagog. He had badly wounded his arm, so badly that he was losing feeling and movement and risked amputation or infection, both likely fatal or at the very least extremely painful. A shaman met them at the springs and performed a ritual using the water, and the soldier regained movement and feeling in his arm and was able to avoid both amputation and infection. The Abenaki used the waters with different patterns and mixtures of the mineral water for other illnesses, infections and ailments with a lot of success.
The springs sound almost too good to be true, and many people believed that they were as there is legend that the springs are cursed.
The Wabanaki, who also lived in the area, described a creature that lurked in the area as a bear-like animal that was very intelligent and had human-like behaviors. They called it the “Wejuk”, which essentially means “Wet Skin” as the creature always seemed to slip away when anyone tried to catch it. White settlers were also intrigued by this bear and tried setting traps for it, which the creature avoided. The Wejuk almost seemed to enact revenge for the settlers attempting to catch it as there were accounts of the creature walking upright like a human, ripping out fences, terrorizing livestock, knocking over trees to destroy cornfields and putting stones in maple syrup buckets and even farming equipment. It was also impossible to track as the creature would walk back the way it came in the same set of tracks, making it impossible for people to follow them. This bear creature became an icon and a huge piece of Vermont folklore, last being seen in the 1800’s. It made its way into Joseph Citro’s book “Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls, and Unsolved Mysteries.”
The real element of the curse of the springs comes from when the British soldier who had his arm wound cured by the magical properties of the waters got back to Brunswick. As the white man does, he wanted to claim the spring for himself, bottle up the water and sell it for a profit. Rumors spread about the magical spring, just in time for Brunswick to be charted on the map in 1761. While it was a very small town as it is today, settlers began slowly making their way up to the area. This led to conflict between the settlers and the Abenaki over the springs that escalated into violence when two Native Americans, a man and a child, were killed during a particularly hostile situation.
The child’s mother, who was a shaman, was devastated. In her grief and anger, she put a curse on the spring when she declared that “any use of the waters of the Great Spirit for profit will never prosper.”
In 1790, a boarding house was built, advertised as a place near the spring with healing properties. By 1820 there were a dozen boarding houses popping up on either side of the Connecticut River in both Vermont and New Hampshire. By 1845, people from as far as the Maine coast were trekking hours to the spring after hearing them being advertised as being able to treat ailments such as kidney issues, rheumatism, consumption, inanimate limbs and vitality. Railroads began being built with a stop in North Strafford, New Hampshire, right across the river. A horse and carriage service began running to and from the station to transport people to the springs.
A man named Charles Bailey built the first hotel near the springs in 1860, and shortly after sold this to a dentist named Dr. Rowell. Rowell renamed the hotel “The Brunswick Springs House.” After seeing success with this, he opened a bottling plant and sold the spring water. Either not knowing about the curse or knowing and just not caring, Rowell made a huge mistake, and in 1894, “The Brunswick Springs House” was destroyed in a fire. Rowell rebuilt the hotel along the river, calling this second hotel “The Pine Crest Lodge.” The lodge eventually collapsed into the river when the foundation gave way from erosion. Rowell died in 1910, and a businessman named John Hutchins, who lived across the river in North Strafford, decided to be the next one to use the springs to make a profit.
He began building a resort hotel with the springs included as part of the resort. On September 19th, 1929, before the hotel’s grand opening, the hotel burned down to the ground from a fire of an unknown source. Undeterred, John hired a Bloomfield contractor named Henry Savage. Henry worked his crew all throughout the winter to rebuild the resort so it would be ready by the next spring. The resort hotel was impressive with four and a half stories, sixty rooms with plate glass windows and half of the rooms having water from the springs piped in directly. On May 15th, 1930, just a month before the hotel was supposed to open, the night security guard saw smoke coming out of one of the storage rooms. By the time he even noticed, it was too late as the phone lines had burned and no one was able to call for help. The hotel, for the second time, burned to the ground. The cause on record was combustion of paint fumes from the paint being stored in the closet.
By the spring of 1931, a new, third hotel was ready after John again tried to rebuild. It was advertised as a “modern city hotel nestling between the White and Green Mountains” with the “Medicine Waters of The Great Spirit.” This hotel was even bigger and better than the last, with 100 rooms that all had water from the spring directly piped in. John also bought two brand new Packard limousines to bring guests to and from the railroad station. On April 23rd, 1931, the hotel burned down to the ground from a fire of unknown origin. The foundation can still be seen near the springs, and John never tried again for his luxury resort.
The Abenaki in Swanton formed a non-profit organization called Wobanaki, Inc. and bought the land, then sold the rights to the Vermont Land Trust to protect it and ensure that no one would to build on it. The Abenaki still honor the springs and leave tokens and offerings by the springs and on the old hotel’s foundation.
Image sources:
obscurevermont.com - “The Mysteries of the Brunswick Springs”