History & local legend
Midnight Mary is the vanishing hitchhiker of Bordentown Road and the lakes near Bristol. Drivers supposedly pick up a young woman, only to find her gone a moment later, leaving a puddle on the passenger seat. Around Van Sciver Lake, another version has her walking or dancing on the water in a pink prom dress.
The lake story explains that Mary and her date, Bobby, died when their car plunged into the water after a prom. In Bristol, people eventually connected the apparition with Gertrude Louise Spring, buried at St. James Episcopal Church. Spring really died in a car accident in 1935, but she was twenty-six. The churchyard record and the teenage prom story are different histories that became joined under the name Midnight Mary.
