Mary Whispers

They told me to get married
And I didn’t want to go
I wore my pretty wedding dress
But the man just didn’t show

Chorus:
They really did not understand
I was happy all alone
I hung myself and lay here dead
Now you’ve come to touch my stone

They carved the name of Mary
But I carved in my curse
And if you lay a hand on me
I’ll make your life much worse

Chorus:
They really did not understand
I was happy all alone
I hung myself and lay here dead
Now you’ve come to touch my stone

I will break your fingers
Into your life I’ll creep
When you pray that I go away
I will haunt you in your sleep

The Story...

Mary Whispers, and the song that follows it, Sorry Mary, are both based on the ghost story about Mary Rutherford and her gravesite just outside of Hanover, Ontario. When we found how how scared some of the locals were, and normally brave men and women would not go near the site, we had to find out the full story.

There are many versions of the story that have obviously been changed by the nature of word of mouth, but the most repeated and popular tale starts with Mary having practiced Witchcraft when she was alive. She happily lived alone, but her family did not want her to become an old maid and forced her to get married. She never saw the man she was meant to marry before the ceremony, and as she stood at the altar she realized he was not coming. She ran home and hung herself with her own veil. They say that when she was buried, Mary put a curse on her grave so that anybody who touched it with a finger (or any body part), would have that finger/part broken within three weeks, or three months.

Touch the stone, break that bone.

For more information that we've been able to gather ourselves, and from people who have written and contacted us, please visit Dear Mary.

Mary Rutherford's Gravesite