Mount Wachusett: the perfect place for skiing and snowboarding in the winter, or hiking and riding the ski lift in the summer. But have you ever heard of the Mount Wachusett ghost?

In 2005, a story of a ghost wandering Mount Wachusett inspired a filmmaker who had just moved to Princeton, Massachusetts to film a movie based on the tales he had heard.  

The legend, a true story, went like this:

In 1751, Robert Keys, his wife, Martha Keys, and their four children moved to the south eastern slope of Mount Wachusett. Robert Keys had just purchased 200 acres of land on that part of the mountain and decided to move his family there. 

About four years after they moved, Martha Keys sent her two oldest daughters to collect sand, which at the time was used for cleaning. Her four year old daughter, Lucy Keys, tried to follow her sisters, but never caught up and was never found. 

Panicked, Robert and Martha Keys sent out search parties and even drained the lake that was near their house, but they never found their daughter. 

Even today, people aren’t sure what really happened to little Lucy Keys. 

One theory is that their neighbor, Tilly Littlejohn, had something to do with her disappearance. The Keys and Littlejohn had been having fights over land, and some people think Littlejohn killed her because of their arguments. It is said he wrote a letter confessing to her murder, and the letter is rumoured to be in the Cornell University archives.

Others think a Native American tribe living nearby took her in. Two travelers many years later once came across a woman who knew little English living with a Canadian tribe. The woman said she onced lived near a place she called “Chusett Hill.” 

Some simply think she was lost in the woods, or attacked by wild animals. 

This story interested everyone who heard it. John Stimpson, a filmmaker and the husband of one of the Wachusett Ski Area Owners, made up a story for a movie about a family who has some frightening encounters with the ghosts of Lucy Keys and her mother. 

The movie, called The Legend Of Lucy Keys, was published in 2006 and was actually filmed in Princeton, Massachusetts.

To this day, the locals living near Mount Wachusett believe that Martha Keys still roams the mountain looking for Lucy, and some even describe seeing small footprints in the winter snow.  

So, what do you think? Do you believe in the Mount Wachusett ghost?