The Legend Of Tug Hill Annie

When discussing the folklore of the paranormal, and the evolution of historical fact into myth, we tend to look towards the long term. Events that happened in the 1700's evolve to become something more than they ever were, facts blurred by the passage of time.

This can occur in the short term, however. Events happen that are so traumatic, so out of the ordinary for a community, they start to take on aspects that never existed, molding with other occurrences to become something folkloric, not factual. One example of this is Tug Hill Annie.

As the folklore goes, Anna Tebidor was killed in a horrible car accident in the 1950s. She was in an unhappy marriage, and tended to cope by drinking a lot. While coming back from grabbing wine with a friend, their car crashed after going too fast around a turn. Anna was killed horribly and graphically.

Soon after her death, people started reported seeing a headless woman wandering down the side of a nearby road. People started conflating her accident with other local accidents, creating an amalgam haunting that they called Tug Hill Annie. The real Anna Tebidor was forgotten, other than her name and tragic death being lent to this haunting.

The road she was reported to haunt wasn't even close to where she met her end. It’s hard to know why, exactly, Anna Tebidor is forgotten, while Tug Hill Annie remains. Anna’s story is one of a life ended too soon, and ended too tragically. Perhaps the folklore that brings people to Rt 177 for a look at the headless spirit allows the actual scene of the accident to remain undisturbed.