Hello, and welcome to the first post of The Raven!
I decided to do a story close to where I lived. Through my research, I found the location in which Molly's head was buried and had planned to have pictures for this post, but alas, weather. I'm hoping to go there soon, so keep an eye out on The Raven's Instagram page.
Now let's go.
Molly (Mollie) Crenshaw, was a freed Jamaican or Haitian slave, depending on who you talk to, who lived in southern St. Charles, Missouri, in the 19th century. Legend has it that Molly practiced voodoo, and villagers would come to her for potions. All was well for Molly until the area encountered a harsh winter and a poor harvest. Rather than accepting this as a part of nature (keep in mind the time), they blamed the witch. I feel like this is how most witch stories begin. The locals want a love spell, they hit up the local witch, and everything is great. They have one lousy crop, and they attack the witch. That is a whole rant within itself.
Let's move on.
There are two theories as to what happened to her, both leading to her death;
1. The locals cut her in half
2. The locals cut her into quarters
There isn't any information on if this occurred before or after her death. In both versions, her body parts were scattered to various locations to keep her from rising. According to legend, Molly's body parts are slowly moving together as time goes on. This portion of the story seems a little far fetched. It sounds like a scary story that parents would tell their children to keep them from sneaking out at night.
Before her death, Molly put a curse on anyone who touched her, causing them to die shortly after. Once again, stereotypical. At this point in my research, I wanted to stop; this seemed like the average witch-hunt story. However, the stories of those who were affected by Molly made this worth it.
There are a couple of theories about who Molly was; some say she was the witch described above, and others say she was just an unmarried woman in the 1800s. According to the St. Charles newspaper, Molly Crenshaw committed suicide by drinking carbolic acid on February 22nd, 1913, at 10:20 am. Molly was a teacher who commuted from southern St. Charles to St. Louis, but after going completely deaf, she stopped teaching.
The second theory is correct, but a few mediums have mentioned feeling vibrations at Molly's headstone that lead them to think that she was a witch. Could that be true? Could death by suicide be a cover-up for a late witch-hunt? I think it could be possible, St. Charles had a population of 8,000 in the 1910s.
This next part is what got me; the gruesome deaths linked to Molly.
In the 1950s, two football players from Francis Howell High School tried to steal her tombstone. The family has since removed her headstone from the cemetery to prevent vandals from damaging it. Perhaps if there is some truth to this story, the family hides the headstone to protect thrill-seekers from Molly's curse.
Regardless, the sheriff later found their bodies impaled on the graveyard fence. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any more information on this, not even a newspaper clipping. I would think that a story this crazy would be easily accessible but apparently not. Perhaps this part of the legend isn't true?
In the 1970s, a group on high school students set off to find her grave by wandering around in the dark, screaming out insults. The students got spooked, which resulted in an accident that involved a young girl jumping from the Old St. Charles Bridge in an attempt to escape Molly. Though I was unable to find anything else about this accident, I did find some interesting stories linked to the Old St. Charles bridge (teaser alert).
Later, in 1992 students tried to find her grave and started insulting Molly, saying, “ I don’t believe in you, Molly,” according to a participating student named Lisa Mesel.
From what I read, nothing happened to this group of students. Maybe they were just lucky, or perhaps the other stories were merely coincident. Regardless, I thought this was an exciting story and felt like sharing.
-Tye
Always cite those sources:
Castile, Raymond. Molly Crenshaw, www.stateofhorror.com/crenshaw.html.
Greenbaum, Leah. “Five St. Louis Ghost Stories That Just Won't Die.” Riverfront Times, Riverfront Times, 21 Jan. 2020, www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/five-st-louis-ghost-stories-that-just-wont-die/Content?oid=2501495.
Witchmolly, www.missourighosts.net/witchmolly.html.