Ocracoke Island - Mad Meg

In 1896, John Simon Howard put into the seaport of Rockford, Maine, as part of his coastal merchant sails. It was a far distant horizon from his more temperate Ocracoke, but there were things to be had, as well as people. He spied the beautiful Margaret Eaton, a charming blonde with a voice of an angel and other musical talents to match. Her talents were even more impressive in that she was barely sixteen years old. John Simon may have connived, charmed, or just kidnapped the girl, but somehow the man twenty years her senior got her on his ship and married her, then brought her back to Ocracoke.

She would be set up in a house there, and slowly over time she would grow incessantly insane. She would change from the lovely Margaret to Mad Mag.

Stories about her home life are often told, including killing and cooking the family cat and feeding it to her husband, burning herself on the forehead with an iron, and cutting off her toe with a cleaver.

When John Simon died, the locals did what they could for her, building a small shack in Paddy's Hollow, a low rise of dunes near Howard Street. It was also near the walking path to the coast, and many people used her front porch as a shortcut, driving her even more insane. Little kids would bang on the walls and run, while Mad Mag would come out screaming. She took to wearing her nightgown all day, and her long blonde hair grew wild and gray. She would wander the island, shrieking at demons only she saw.

When she finally passed, the island thought they were rid of her, but they would be wrong.

Now, her spirit can be seen standing in the Howard family graveyard, shrieking into the twilight, only to disappear into the night.

People have even seen her spirit wander the roads, thinking she is just another old woman, until they realize she does not speak back when they say Good Evening. And then she vanishes, walking away into the dark of the night.