50 States of Wonder
5 Strange and Satanic Spots in New Hampshire

Apparently, Satan is not much of a cook. At the top of Purgatory Falls, a splashy water feature in southern New Hampshire, two glacial potholes are known as “The Devil's Bean Pot” and “The Devil's Footprint.” One story has it that Satan, incognito, once invited a bevy of local clergy to eat some beans with him on the spot. But cooking with the flames of Hell was apparently beyond Satan, who, when his pot of beans exploded, melting the surrounding area and fusing his foot to the stone, swore so demonically that the churchmen fled, as they suddenly recognized the true identity of their host. This didn't scare early 20th-century locals from partying in Purgatory—the area was a popular picnic spot. Currently, the trailhead parking lot to access the falls is closed due to intense traffic during COVID-19, though some visitors have been parking farther away and hiking in. (Read more.)

Eunice “Goody” Cole was the only woman to be convicted of witchcraft in New Hampshire history. Throughout her long, painful life, both her neighbors and court juries claimed that it was obvious that Cole had “familiarity with the Devil.”

A reportedly eccentric, unpleasant resident of Hampton, Cole’s fellow townsfolk accused her of everything from killing their livestock to taking the form of animals and communicating with the Devil. Starting in 1656, Cole would be tried for witchcraft three times, whipped, imprisoned for years on end, and stripped of her citizenship.

In the 20th century, Goody Cole became the subject of local sympathy, to the point that the town reinstated her citizenship in 1938 and ceremoniously burned copies of her court records, the ashes of which now sit in an urn in the town's Tuck Museum. In 1963, Harold Fernald, a Hampton resident, erected a sculpted stone in her honor. It now stands on the town green. (Read more.) 

Never piss Satan off, or he might burn down your house.

New Hampshire's very own Faust, legend has it, learned this lesson the hard way. Jonathan Moulton was a general and veteran of many an 18th-century war. He was also a very wealthy man, and a story sprung up that his wealth came from an unexpected source: the Devil. The story goes something like this: Having sold his soul to Satan, Moulton asked for his boots to be filled with gold once a month in return. One day, Moulton sneakily nailed his boots to a hole in his floor, then punched out the soles. The next time Satan came to pay up, he ended up filling Moulton's basement with gold. (Another variation has it that Moulton hung his boots in the fireplace with the bottoms cut out. Either way, the result was a roomful of gold.)

So, Satan is said to have burned Moulton's house down in revenge. The house house really did burn down in 1769, but was rebuilt, resulting in the mansion that still stands today. It's a private residence, so please do not disturb the inhabitants. (Read more.)

In 1896, America's first and perhaps most prolific serial killer wrote a stunning confession, admitting to a series of crimes nearly too gruesome to imagine. “I was born with the Devil in me,” H.H. Holmes wrote. “I was born with the evil standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since.” If that was the case, then this white-paneled old house, built in 1825, is where the Devil stood by while Holmes was born. Holmes would go on to kill an unknown number of people, many of them in a building in Chicago that he designed for precisely that purpose. It would later gain the grisly monicker of “the Murder Castle.” While that building mysteriously burned in a fire in 1895, Holmes's New Hampshire birthplace still stands, thankfully with no visible connection to the man who was born there. As it is a private home, please do not disturb the inhabitants. (Read more.)

British occultist and writer Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) never identified as a Satanist, though his critics often called him one. Nevertheless, Crowley enjoyed referencing the devil in his work and called himself the 'Beast 666.' For a few months in 1916, Crowley took a four-month sabbatical from shocking the world with his writing and antics. He spent that time, which called his “magick retirement,” in this house in Hebron, and apparently conducted a slew of odd rituals while living there. The house, ironically situated next to a church, was once owned by one of Crowley's literary collaborators. These days, it's a private home, so please do not disturb the residents. (Read more.)