{"id":584,"slug":"ocean-born-mary-house-henniker-new-hampshire","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Ocean Born Mary is the conned — the 'never lived' that's the house's lie, the 'Gus Roy' that's the showman ran. The 'shovels rented' is the sold — the 'treasure dug' that's the tourists' pay, the 'admission charged' that's the story's price. The 'Holzer fooled' is the taken — the 'ghost hunter' that's the expert's miss, the 'Rhode Island' that's the real home's move.","The 'silk kept' is the true — the 'green brocade' that's the pirate's gift, the 'wedding worn' that's the legend's proof. The 'born at sea' is the fact — the '1720' that's the ship's hold, the 'pirate spared' that's the naming's deal. Ocean Born Mary is the split — the 'real woman' that's the history's kept, the 'fake house' that's the legend's stage.","The file keeps Ocean Born Mary: the conned house, the rented shovels, the fooled expert, and the real silk.","Ocean Born Mary House is the archive's New Hampshire file — the haunted house the ghost never entered."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Ocean Born Mary House is the archive's New Hampshire file — the hoax that fooled Hans Holzer.","A house keeps its lie — the file's suggestion being that Mary's hold is the layered: the 'real birth' that's the fact kept, the 'fake house' that's the con built, and the 'Holzer fooled' that's the legend's win."]}],"name":"Ocean-Born Mary House","aliases":["Robert Wallace House"],"type":"HISTORIC_HOUSE","type_label":"Historic House","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["hauntings","historic-sites"],"desc":"House central to a commercial ghost legend contradicted by the town historian.","full_desc":"Ocean-Born Mary House is a historic house in Henniker, New Hampshire. House central to a commercial ghost legend contradicted by the town historian. The newspaper identifies the building as Robert Wallace’s Bear Hill Road house; Mary instead lived with William in another house on the same road, later destroyed by fire. Reported lore and claims include: Historian Martha Taylor says Mary Wallace never lived in the house associated with her ghost: it belonged to her son Robert. Louis Maurice Augustus Roy later promoted the haunting and treasure stories.","address":"Bear Hill Road","city":"Henniker","county":"Merrimack","state":"New Hampshire","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":43.181516,"lon":-71.818818,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PRIVATE","access_notes":"Private property; no public visitation or investigations authorized by this record.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Discovery/enrichment pass; geographic coordinates and current visitor conditions remain to be independently verified. Evidence confidence refers to attribution, not paranormal reality.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":61.9,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":446,"type":"HAUNTING_LEGEND","description":"Historian Martha Taylor says Mary Wallace never lived in the house associated with her ghost: it belonged to her son Robert. Louis Maurice Augustus Roy later promoted the haunting and treasure stories. The lore gives it a name — Ocean-Born Mary — which is what turns a report into a resident. Ocean-Born Mary House in Henniker, New Hampshire is the kind of old house where every sound eventually gets a name. The account is disputed — even the folklore has factions. The account appears in 'A ghost of a story behind hauntings of Ocean-Born Mary'. The legend does what legends do — it explains the place in a way the records can't.","evidence":"DISPUTED","evidence_label":"Disputed","entity":"Ocean-Born Mary","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.65,"conflict_notes":"Do not conflate Robert’s surviving house, William’s former house, or the claimed relocated Londonderry house in Rhode Island.","source":{"name":"A ghost of a story behind hauntings of Ocean-Born Mary","url":"https://www.concordmonitor.com/2019/12/02/henniker-s-ghost-story-lives-on-30620373/","publisher":"Concord Monitor","type":"NEWSPAPER","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The newspaper identifies the building as Robert Wallace’s Bear Hill Road house; Mary instead lived with William in another house on the same road, later destroyed by fire. Ocean-Born Mary House's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. 'A ghost of a story behind hauntings of Ocean-Born Mary' documents the entry. The entry's timeline holds it; the lore holds the rest.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"A ghost of a story behind hauntings of Ocean-Born Mary","url":"https://www.concordmonitor.com/2019/12/02/henniker-s-ghost-story-lives-on-30620373/","publisher":"Concord Monitor","type":"NEWSPAPER","authority":3}}],"legends":[],"entities":[{"name":"Ocean-Born Mary","claimed_identity":"Ocean-Born Mary","verified":null,"summary":"Historian Martha Taylor says Mary Wallace never lived in the house associated with her ghost: it belonged to her son Robert. Louis Maurice Augustus Roy later promoted the haunting and treasure stories. The presence goes by Ocean-Born Mary. Ocean-Born Mary House in Henniker, New Hampshire is the kind of old house where every sound eventually gets a name. The account appears in 'A ghost of a story behind hauntings of Ocean-Born Mary'. The file keeps Ocean-Born Mary on the roster; the sightings keep the name alive.","behavior":"Historian Martha Taylor says Mary Wallace never lived in the house associated with her ghost: it belonged to her son Robert. Louis Maurice Augustus Roy later promoted the haunting and treasure stories.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"A ghost of a story behind hauntings of Ocean-Born Mary","url":"https://www.concordmonitor.com/2019/12/02/henniker-s-ghost-story-lives-on-30620373/","publisher":"Concord Monitor","type":"NEWSPAPER","authority":3}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Private property; not open to the public. View only from public rights-of-way where legal.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"A ghost of a story behind hauntings of Ocean-Born Mary","url":"https://www.concordmonitor.com/2019/12/02/henniker-s-ghost-story-lives-on-30620373/","publisher":"Concord Monitor","type":"NEWSPAPER","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":1,"sources":1}}