Green Mount Cemetery — Black Agnes
Montpelier, Vermont, United States
Cemetery · local-legend
The Story
At Green Mount Cemetery in Montpelier, a seated memorial figure has acquired the name Black Agnes and a warning about misfortune. The statue is actually Karl Bitter’s Thanatos, made for John E. Hubbard. Its solemn identity and its local curse tradition have become inseparable parts of the visit.
The Hauntings
Terraced burial lots and curving roads make Green Mount a place to walk slowly. Among its memorials, the Hubbard figure has become the subject of a very different sort of attention. The name used in local ghost stories belongs neither to the person commemorated nor to the sculpture’s original subject. That mismatch is part of this monument’s strange afterlife. The best-known warning concerns people who sit in the statue’s lap. A 2017 account in Gravely Speaking records several versions: misfortune might arrive after seven hours, seven days or seven months. Other tales place screams near the monument at night or describe eyes glowing red. The deadline changes with the teller, but the warning about disturbing the figure remains. “Black Agnes” is the local nickname. The monument commemorates John Erastus Hubbard and depicts Thanatos, the personification of death. It is distinct from Maryland’s similarly named Black Aggie tradition. Here, the unsettling story belongs to a work originally intended as a dignified memorial, not to the grave of a woman named Agnes.
The History
The city and donor Calvin Keith funded the purchase of Green Mount’s original land in 1854. Its hillside developed into a landscape of terraced lots, trees and sculptured memorials. In 1905, a bequest from John E. Hubbard helped provide the chapel-vault at the cemetery. His name therefore remains part of the site’s public history as well as its most familiar supernatural nickname. An early photograph of the Hubbard memorial appeared as illustration 12 in Ferdinand Schevill’s 1917 biography of Karl Bitter. That archival identification provides a quieter counterpart to the legend: the object remembered as Black Agnes also belongs to the history of American memorial sculpture.
A sense of place.
Visitor Experiences
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This future chapter will bring together stories from the PHASM community. An unexpected encounter, a lingering feeling, or a quiet visit—your experience will be welcome.
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Sources & further reading.
- City of Montpelier — Green Mount Cemetery (history)
- Wikimedia Commons; underlying University of Chicago Press publication — John Erastus Hubbard memorial — photograph from Karl Bitter: A Biography (history)
- Gravely Speaking — Black Agnes, Isn’t! (reports)
- Wikimedia Commons; underlying University of Chicago Press publication — John Erastus Hubbard memorial — photograph from Karl Bitter: A Biography (reports)
- City of Montpelier — Cemeteries (visiting)
Plan Your Visit
Green Mount is a municipal cemetery presented by the city as a destination for history, art and reflection. Plan a respectful daylight visit and check posted restrictions or ask the cemetery office about current conditions. Ordinary visiting does not establish permission for an after-hours investigation. Do not climb or sit on the sculpture.