Emily's Bridge: A Covered Bridge and a Stubborn Legend

A few miles east of Stowe village, on a country road that follows Gold Brook through a wooded valley, stands a covered bridge built in eighteen forty-four. The Gold Brook Covered Bridge is a Howe truss structure, a type common in New England at the height of the covered bridge era, and it is among the older examples surviving in Vermont. It is a handsome bridge in the ordinary sense, but it has accumulated something unusual over the years: a ghost story that has given it an entirely different name.

Local tradition holds that the bridge is haunted by a young woman named Emily, who is said to have died near the bridge under tragic circumstances sometime in the nineteenth century. The versions of the story vary depending on who tells it and when. Some say she was jilted on her wedding day and died by her own hand. Others offer different endings. Historians who have looked for Emily in the documentary record of Stowe have not found her. No death matching the story, no family name, no corroborating evidence appears in the records that researchers have been able to locate.

What is documented is that the bridge has been a gathering place for people curious about the legend for decades. It is known as Emily's Bridge almost as widely as by its official name. Scratch marks on the wooden interior timbers, which the legend attributes to Emily's spirit, have more practical explanations but continue to feed the story. The bridge is real. Whether Emily was is something the historical record declines to settle.