FIDDLER’S GHOST

Inscription

FIDDLER'S GHOST
ON SEPTEMBER 7, 1808, A LOCAL
FIDDLER WAS MURDERED ON A
BRIDGE HERE. THE BRIDGE IS
GONE BUT HIS GHOST STILL PLAYS
A FIDDLE ON MOONLIT NIGHTS.
NEW YORK FOLKLORE
WILLIAM G. POMEROY FOUNDATION 2021

The Ghost of Fiddler’s bridge is the most famous ghoul haunting in Clinton, a small town in Dutchess County in New York’s Hudson Valley. The haunted bridge once stood on a road connecting Pleasant Plains to Schultzville. Though you will no longer see a bridge, and you will likely not see a fiddler, you might hear one sawing away if you visit on the right evening.

On September 7, 1808, an old fiddler who played at local dances and other hootenannies was robbed and murdered while walking home from a dance. His body was abandoned on a bridge that connected the winding, narrow road. Ever since, according to tradition, his ghost can be heard playing the fiddle on moonlit nights at the witching hour.

Even a hundred years later, visitors to Clinton, often traveling up from New York City, could expect to hear renditions of the legend of the musical ghost of Fiddler’s Bridge. One local enthusiast, Charles W. Carpenter, who also happened to be Clinton’s town supervisor, was tired of being told his tale was preposterous. A man of action, one night, Carpenter crowded the disbelievers into his hay wagon and shot off for the haunted site. As the wagon barreled towards the bridge, Carpenter’s flabbergasted passengers heard the wails of a great fiddler at work.

The bridge became Fiddler’s Bridge. And even after the bridge was torn down, the town named the road Fiddler’s Bridge Road in honor of the old fiddler.

Clinton locals have kept the Fiddler’s Bridge legend alive and celebrated. Viola and Emil Schoch performed a reenactment of the hay-barrel ride in 1992. The audience did indeed report hearing fiddle music, though it was admittedly performed by a local teenager costumed in a white sheet.