Satanism, Incest, and Trees! Is Cult House Road Actually Haunted?
I was a dorky kid, Traveler. There wasn’t much to do in my hometown, and there still isn’t. My childhood ended concurrently the popularization of the internet. And with the popularization of the internet came a general interest in legend tripping.
Legend tripping involves traveling where someone may have died, and the place might be haunted, and something terrible could happen to you based on generational tales passed down to you from your older siblings, cousins, or weird uncles. With the internet came websites that categorized these legends so you could easily find them, but before geolocating. One such website is Obiwan’s Ghosts and Hauntings.
It was here that I found this old story, and I would check the road out in my twenties.
It looks awesome, doesn’t it? Unfortunately much of it is not true.
The road being referred to is Cossart Road in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. The M. Night Shyamalan film The Village was filmed in this area in 2003, and the cast and crew didn’t report any problems involving demons, cults, or anything of that nature. (In my opinion, Cult House Road is a better story than the village ended up being. Sorry, M. Night.)
The trees lean in either direction, as seen in the above photo. The roots on some of the trees are exposed, but I attribute that to lousy soil/growing conditions in southeastern Pennsylvania/Delaware. There are a couple of houses on this road, none of which looks like the eponymous Cult House. Driving down the road no longer leads to car chases with phantom red trucks. The sign has been taken down several dozen times, but usually by adventurers seeking bedroom decorations. That last one affected the feeder road that leads into Cossart road, Cossart Manor road, that Chester County changed the name of Cossart Manor road altogether. This kind of thing happened with Copperhead Road in Tennessee after Steve Earle released the eponymous song in 1988.
As for the “chemical family” mentioned in the story, I’ll save you the suspense, Traveler. The author refers to the du Pont family of du Pont chemicals, who settled in the area in the late 18th century and manufactured gunpowder. The du Pont family was a strange lot; this is true. They were rich, held old money values, and there’s even a documented case of incest in the family, according to Wikipedia.
Despite these old rich traditions, the du Pont family was also secular. This could be the French heritage. But up until the 1990s, and especially with the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, secular values could be seen as even Occult Satanism!
Look at how far we’ve come, right?
But, The du Pont family was also active as philanthropists. Alfred started the Alfred I. du Pont Children’s Hospital with a 40 million dollar donation. The du Ponts had lavish homes and properties, including nearby Longwood Gardens and, unfortunately, Foxcatcher Mansion.
That said, living opulently isn’t the best way to keep a low profile when committing ritualistic murder. Or, in John’s case, committing any kind of murder. So I doubt that they owned this beat-up mansion for the sake of sacrifices to dark gods. The only rich occultist I can think of that lived opulently would’ve been rocket fuel engineer Jack Parsons, but he never killed anyone. Jack just gave his boat to L. Ron Hubbard. We all know how that ended up.
But just because Cossart Road doesn’t seem to have a murderous cult living there, that doesn’t mean it isn’t haunted, Traveler.
And yes, I have two examples.
At nearby Longwood Gardens is the Brandywine Valley Tourism building. This building actually served as part of the Underground Railroad, and it’s my personal experience that many Underground Railroad buildings are haunted. This building is no exception. I had to clean it when I was a custodian with Longwood, and once while cleaning the bathroom, one of the sink faucets came on by itself.
The year was 2003, and they weren’t motion sensor faucets.
Another incident is the Battle of Brandywine during the Revolutionary War. That Battle is said to still rage some nights at nearby Brandywine Creek State Park.
With all that speculation, something is wrong with Cossart road. There’s a dreary energy to it. It’s just a place I haven’t investigated, is all.
Traveler, you can find out more in a Youtube video I made on the subject. Just click on the link. And should you choose to investigate, please be careful! As you can see, no shoulders are on either side of this road. Furthermore, no trespassing signs are posted everywhere, and we wouldn’t want to trespass!
Until again, safe travels, Traveler!
