The Melon Heads of Suffield?
Fall is my favorite time of year. There’s beautiful foliage, pumpkin everything (especially beer and coffee!), football, and spooky season. I especially love Halloween—maybe because my birthday is right around that time, or maybe it’s the candy. More likely, it’s my fascination with legends and the supernatural. That curiosity led me to stumble across an open investigation about Melon Heads on ghostquest.net when I first moved to town.
Screenshot of the Suffield section of the Ghost Quest website.
Three years later, research is still ongoing into the Melon Heads of Suffield. Since it looked like the Ghost Quest team had hit a dead end, I decided to pick up the trail. I had so many questions: What exactly is a Melon Head? Why would they be in Suffield? Has anyone ever seen one here?
So, first things first; what’s a Melon Head? According to legend, they’re people who developed hydrocephalus -an enlarged, fluid-filled head- after generations of cannibalism and inbreeding. We know today that sufferers of hydrocephalus are neither inbred nor cannibals.
A photo of a purported Melon Head (Credit Creepy Connecticut)
The next question is, how did people become inbred cannibals in the first place? There are two versions of the story, and interestingly, both could apply to Suffield.
The first version tells of a long-ago prison break. The escapees survived off the land through spring and summer, but in the harsh winter months, they turned to ambushing travelers on isolated roads. Over time, the combination of cannibalism and incest presumably contorted their appearance into something monstrous.
The second version involves a family banished from colonial society for witchcraft and forced to live in the woods. Cut off from civilization, they resorted to inbreeding and cannibalism—much like the escaped prisoners.
A late 19th Century lithograph depicting the Salem Witch Trials (Credit Joseph E. from Wikipedia)
So, are there any actual reports of Melon Heads in Suffield? After searching through local records and online databases, I couldn’t find a single sighting. Still, when I looked deeper into Suffield’s history, I realized this town would make ideal Melon Head territory.
While no one in Suffield was ever convicted of witchcraft, one colonial family fits the legend’s profile. Mary Tousely and her family were notorious troublemakers, convicted of perjury, theft, and killing their neighbors’ livestock. Though never formally charged as a witch, Mary’s repeated punishments suggest she may have been suspected of such. There’s no record of her or her family being banished, but it’s easy to imagine how such a family could inspire dark rumors that grew over generations into the Melon Head myth.
An image depicting a woman being whipped in a similar manner to Mary Tousely and her daughter (Credit New England Historical Society)
The prisoner origin story also ties neatly to Suffield’s geography. Just over the town line in East Granby stands Old Newgate Prison, notorious for its early prison breaks. An isolated road once ran from the prison into Suffield—perfect hunting grounds for desperate fugitives in winter. Even today, the nearby MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution keeps the faint possibility of an escaped convict alive in local imagination.
Old Newgate Prison in 2018 (Credit Lost New England)
Legends like the Melon Heads connect history, fear, and folklore in fascinating ways. They mix real people and places with centuries of storytelling, creating a twilight zone between truth and imagination. Halloween, more than any other holiday, lives in that space and I think a Melon Head would make the perfect Suffield Halloween costume.
Bibliography
“Way More than the Scarlet Letter: Puritan Punishments.” New England Historical Society, September 21, 2024. https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/way-more-than-the-scarlet-letter-puritan-punishments/.
Alcorn, Robert Hayden. The biography of a town: Suffield, Connecticut, 1670-1970. Hartford, CT: 300th Anniversary Committee of the Town of Suffield, 1970.
Citro, Joseph A. Joe Citro’s weird new england: Your travel guide to New England’s local legends and Best kept secrets. New York, NY: Sterling Pub. Co, 2005.
Strahan, Derek. “Old Newgate Prison, East Granby, Connecticut.” Lost New England, January 5, 2020. https://lostnewengland.com/2020/01/old-newgate-prison-east-granby-connecticut/.
Weaver, Brian. “Haunted Locations: Connecticut.” GHOSTQUEST.NET, January 1, 2016. https://www.ghostquest.net/haunted-places-connecticut-usa.html.
