Moll Dyer Rock
Moll Dyer Rock is a folklore monument in Leonardtown, Maryland. Folklore monument associated with published local folklore. The name the accounts keep returning to is Moll Dyer. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 named or described presence — all telling, no verified spine yet, and the file says so plainly. Access details are unverified — research before visiting.
Historical society identifies present location at Tudor Hall; original site differs.
· in your passport — stamped · open it
Is Moll Dyer Rock haunted?
The record holds 1 claim, 1 legend, 1 named entity — filed as reported, not verified. The heaviest filing is classed documented legend. The archive documents the claim; it takes no position on the ghost.
The record — long form
Moll Dyer Rock is Maryland's witch stone — the boulder where, legend says, Moll Dyer froze to death in February 1698 after a Leonardtown mob blamed her for the influenza killing the county and burned her cabin on the coldest night of the hardest winter anyone remembered. A boy found her days later, one hand on the rock and one raised to the sky; when they pulled her loose, the story goes, her handprint stayed in the stone.
Moll was probably real — a migrant woman, an herbalist, maybe a healer trained in the West Indies, living alone on charity at the edge of a suspicious town. Whether the mob and the burning happened as told is legend, but the county named a road and a stream for her, the rock was found in the woods in 1968 and moved to the Old Jail in 1972, and in 2021 Leonardtown gave it a shelter at Tudor Hall and made February 26 Moll Dyer Day. Visitors still leave trinkets on it; the curse is still said to make you dizzy if you touch it.
The file keeps the rock: the 1698 winter, the mob legend, the found stone, and the town that eventually made its accused witch a memorial.
Moll Dyer Rock is the archive's witch file — the influenza panic, the frozen handprint, and the stone Leonardtown shelters now.
Why this file matters
Moll Dyer Rock is the archive's witch file — the 1698 legend, the rock with the handprint, and the town's late apology.
A stone that holds a curse keeps its shelter — the file's suggestion being that Moll Dyer's hold is the community's guilt: the witch they burned, the rock she froze to, and the day they finally gave her name a holiday.
Moll Dyer is the name of a legendary 17th-century resident of Leonardtown, Maryland, who is said to have been accused of witchcraft and chased out of her home by the local townsfolk on a winter night. Her body was allegedly found a few days later, partially frozen to a large stone.
Moll DyerThe record of claims
The historical society recounts Moll Dyer supposedly freezing at this rock. Moll Dyer Rock's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. 'Moll Dyer Rock' preserves the telling; the record keeps it filed where it belongs, as lore. The legend does what legends do — it explains the place in a way the records can't.
The historical society recounts Moll Dyer supposedly freezing at this rock. The site in Leonardtown, Maryland gives the account a documented setting: real place, real history, unresolved reports. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. Every community keeps one story like this; this is theirs.
Alleged entities
The historical society recounts Moll Dyer supposedly freezing at this rock. The site in Leonardtown, Maryland gives the account a documented setting: real place, real history, unresolved reports. Named presences persist where anonymous reports fade — the file's name here is Moll Dyer. The telling survives; the proof stays folklore.
Sources on file
- 01Moll Dyer RockSt. Mary's County Historical Society · historical society · A2
Field notes & open questions
Discovery record. Coordinates, earliest legend source, independent history and current visitor rules require further verification.