Haunted hotel guide · Hart's Location, New Hampshire

The Haunted Notchland Inn: Nancy Barton and the Messages on the Mirror

A granite mansion deep in Crawford Notch, built by a reclusive pioneer photographer, where guests say a young woman who froze to death in 1778 still leaves notes on the bathroom mirror.

By The Haunted Rooms Team · Updated November 2026 · How we rate hotels

2.8/5Haunted Rooms Score

1860sGranite house built

1778Year on Nancy's stone

Check availabilityMeet the ghosts

The Notchland Inn sits on a knoll above the Saco River in Crawford Notch, inside the White Mountain National Forest, with Mount Bemis behind it and Mounts Hope and Crawford across the valley. The main house is a granite mansion from the 1860s, built by the Boston dentist and early photographer Samuel Bemis, and it has been an inn since the 1920s. Today it is a quiet country inn of 15 rooms, suites and cottages on a 100-acre estate, every room with a wood-burning fireplace.

Its ghost story is older than the house. In the front parlor stands a memorial stone to Nancy Barton, who died in a snowstorm in the notch while chasing the man who had run off with her dowry. The brook, pond and mountain nearby all carry her name, and guests at Notchland say she has a habit of writing in the steam on their bathroom mirrors. This guide covers the legend, what guests report, the real history of the house and how to plan a stay.

The ghosts of the Notchland Inn

Nancy Barton and the stone in the parlor

The story is told on a stone in Notchland’s front parlor: “1778. Nancy Barton. Died in a snowstorm in pursuit of her faithless lover.” As New Hampshire Magazine retells it, Nancy was engaged when her fiance left before the wedding, taking her dowry with him. She set out on foot to catch him, was caught by a snowstorm in the notch, and friends found her frozen beside the brook that now bears her name.

Nancy Brook, Nancy Pond, Nancy Cascades and Mount Nancy are all named for her, so her story is written across the map of the valley around the inn. An older account of Mount Nancy says she set out from Jefferson and walked through the night in deep snow, and adds that the fiance went mad with remorse when he heard how she died and did not long outlive her.

Words written on the mirror

The most repeated report at Notchland is a simple one. Guests step out of the bedroom or come back from dinner to find words written in the steam on the bathroom mirror, even when nobody has run the shower. New Hampshire Magazine adds that some guests have found words written in lipstick.

The messages are always credited to Nancy, the young woman whose life ended a short walk from the house. Nobody has published a photograph of one, and it is worth checking that a previous guest’s fingertip message is not reappearing in the steam, but the story is told by guests rather than invented for marketing: the inn itself does not sell its ghost.

The land, not the building

Older guides to the inn make the point that it is the land rather than the house that is haunted. Nancy died more than 80 years before the granite house was built, and the tradition places her death near the brook, not at the inn. The stone in the parlor ties the two together, and that is where most guests first meet her story.

The Lord of the Valley

The man who built the house has a story of his own. Samuel Bemis was a wealthy Boston dentist who came to the notch, bought land from the innkeeper Abel Crawford and built himself a granite mansion and lived there as a recluse. Locals called him the Lord of the Valley. He died in 1881 and is buried beside the house. We have not found published reports of his ghost, but guests who know the history tend to find the coincidence striking: two solitary figures, nearly a century apart, whose stories are tied to the same few acres of valley.

The Willey family, just up the notch

A few miles north is the site of the notch’s most famous tragedy. In August 1826 a landslide came down Mount Willey and killed the entire Willey family, who had fled their house to a shelter during a storm; the house itself was left standing. The story inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Ambitious Guest.” It is not a Notchland ghost story, but it is part of why Crawford Notch has such a haunted reputation.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The guest bathrooms: Where guests report words appearing in the steam on the mirror, or written in lipstick.
• The front parlor: Home to Nancy Barton’s memorial stone; the inn credits the room’s design to Gustav Stickley, a founder of the Arts and Crafts movement.
• The dining room: The inn says it is the old tavern of Abel Crawford’s Mount Crawford House, which once stood on the property.
• Nancy Brook and Nancy Cascades: The trail along the brook where, according to the legend, Nancy was found.

History of The Notchland Inn

Crawford Notch was a hard road long before it was a holiday destination. The Tenth New Hampshire Turnpike was pushed through the pass in 1803, linking Portsmouth with the farms of northern New Hampshire, and the Crawford family kept the inns that sheltered travelers along it. The Notchland Inn says its tradition of hospitality is tied directly to Abel Crawford’s Mount Crawford House, which stood on the property, and that the old tavern is today’s dining room.

Samuel A. Bemis (1793 to 1881) was a prosperous Boston dentist and one of the first photographers in the United States. He bought a daguerreotype camera in April 1840, made his first daguerreotype on April 19, 1840 and went on to take some of the earliest landscape photographs of the White Mountains. He bought a large tract of land from Abel Crawford, including much of the notch, and in the 1860s built the granite mansion that is now the inn, living there alone as the eccentric Lord of the Valley until his death in 1881. He gave his own name to a lake, a brook, a ridge and a mountain nearby, and his grave is beside the house.

The house became an inn in the 1920s and has taken guests ever since. It now sits on a 100-acre estate with about 8,000 feet of Saco River frontage, two swimming holes, gardens, a gazebo and a pond. The Davis Path begins across the road and climbs Mount Crawford toward Mount Washington.

Hart’s Location itself is one of the smallest towns in New Hampshire. Its population fell to just seven in 1960 and 1970, and the 2020 census counted 68. That emptiness is a large part of Notchland’s appeal: on a winter night the nearest lights belong to the stars, and the only sound is the river.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Look for Nancy Barton’s stone in the front parlor before dinner and read the inscription for yourself.
• Dinner is a single seating at 7 pm, Wednesday through Sunday, and it fills up: reserve it when you book your room.
• Hike to Nancy Cascades on the Nancy Pond Trail, off Route 302 south of the inn, to see the brook named for her.
• Two cottages are pet friendly; ask the inn about its rules before you bring a dog.
• Pair your stay with a night at the Mount Washington Hotel, about 20 minutes north through the notch.
• Ride the Conway Scenic Railroad’s Notch Train, which stops at the old Crawford depot at the top of the pass.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods: Princess Carolyn and Room 314
• The Beal House Inn, Littleton: An 1833 inn with voices in the empty common room (not taking guests at present)
• Green Mountain Inn, Stowe, Vermont: Boots Berry, who still tap dances on the roof
• Haunted hotels in New Hampshire

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• New Hampshire Magazine: Where to find ghosts, ghouls and scares in the Granite State
• The Notchland Inn: official site
• The Notchland Inn: History
• Wikipedia: Samuel Bemis
• Wikipedia: Mount Nancy
• Wikipedia: Crawford Notch

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