Marrtown

West Virginia · United States · Bridge

Scottish settlers brought the Banshee with them to a farming community outside Parkersburg, West Virginia, and she is said to have kept working there.

Marrtown lies about a mile south of Parkersburg, West Virginia, a small farming community settled by Scottish immigrants in the middle of the nineteenth century. They came from a part of Scotland where belief in the supernatural was not an eccentricity, and the traditions they brought included witches, ghosts, elves, fairies, and above all the Banshee.

In the Irish and Scottish understanding, the Banshee attaches herself to particular clans and announces a death. She is described riding a white horse and haunting waterways, where she washes the grave clothes of her dead. She wears a burial shroud and rags, and her eyes are red from weeping for the dead of her clan.

Thomas and Mary Marr came through the Civil War alive but lost a great deal of property in it. What the community around them reported afterwards, and what has been passed down under the Marr name since, follows the older pattern exactly: a figure at the water, and a warning that arrives before the death rather than after it. Marrtown is one of the clearest examples in America of an imported death omen surviving the crossing intact.

FAQ

Where is Marrtown located?

Marrtown is in West Virginia, United States.