Ghosts of Hampton Bays: The Lady of Red Creek

Mention the “Lady of Red Creek” and you’ll draw either blank stares or wide smiles happy to speak of the spook that’s been a subject of local lore for generations. She is fabled to haunt passing motorists on a backwoods shortcut from the Squiretown section of town to Riverhead-bound Route 24.

Lynn Murcott of Hampton Bays has known the story all her life.  Her late father, Harry Murcott, encountered the apparition face to face in the 1930s and spoke of it frequently.

“Dad was 16-17 years old, driving in the car with a bunch of other kids towards the back end of Newtown Rd.  They all looked out the window and saw this woman was gliding along at the same speed as the car—just staring at them.  The whole car screamed, and when he floored it, it seemed she was keeping up pace.”

While little is documented beyond oral tradition, the spirit is believed to be a missionary woman killed during colonial times.

“He was quite shaken, even all those years later,” Murcott said.

The Newtown Road corridor has another spirited spot perhaps only some of us can sense.  Paranormal investigator Joe Giaquinto, a Hampton Bays native and co-author of Ghosts of Long Island with Keriann Flanagan-Brosky, spoke of strong energy surrounding the open hillside near the fork of Newtown and Sunset by the former Holzman Duck Farm.

“It felt like we were entering a very sacred area,” remarked Giaquinto.  “There were these souls, Native American souls, hunting around—the energy seemed to almost come into the car.”

It was a feeling not of fright or disturbance, nor one Giaquinto could really describe as positive or negative.  Rather, he was entering a zone of some significance, or perhaps where he might not have belonged.

“Sometimes you get this haunting phenomena that’s not really a ghost, but you know it’s there.  Leftover energy or spirits lingering to impress on me they were there, calling out.”

To read about the ghost of , .