 What's the first thing that comes to mind when I say New York? Probably New York City, Times Square, Broadway, the lights, the magic. But the state of New York is actually very different. The state of New York has a lot of farmers. The state of New York is one of the backbones of the American society. Because without our farmers, we would be nowhere. They are some of the most essential workers we have in our nation. And today on Mystery Monday, we're going to talk about a ghost town. A ghost town in New York State. Now for many people, there are logical reasons as to why this town eventually was abandoned. But for locals that live around the ghost town, they won't set foot in the town at night. But before we go any further, you know what to do, hit that subscribe button and give us a like. If you want to support the channel, we have a Patreon listed down below. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta. My name is Bryce, and today we're going to talk about Happy Valley, New York. The village of Happy Valley is just north of the city of Syracuse, New York. Happy Valley is a hamlet of the town of Frazier. Now Frazier was settled in the 1850s. It was for hops farmers. The hops farmers eventually became dairy farmers. The hamlet became known as Happy Valley because the main road in Frazier was Happy Valley Road, a road that still exists today. The cemetery in Happy Valley was established in 1866, and this cemetery still exists. It's still there. You can visit it. The school in Happy Valley was built in 1867. Now the foundation of the school is still there. However, the woodwork, the building itself burned down. So from the mid 1800s all the way to the early 1930s, Happy Valley functioned as a well-loved small little hamlet full of America's farmers. And then by the early 1930s, the town just disappeared. It became an actual ghost town. Now they say the town disappeared because of a plague, or a curse, or a serial killer. Now we have to talk about the park's services, because the town now is owned by the government as a national park. You see the logical explanation for the disappearance of Happy Valley had a lot to do with the Great Depression. In our last episode of Mystery Monday where we talked about Erkhammer, we talked about the town vanishing. And in the Great Depression, farmers were affected heavily by the crash of the stock market. Now the big difference between Erkhammer and Happy Valley is Happy Valley existed on this realm of reality. Erkhammer might be a parallel town, we don't know. But Happy Valley was really, it was here in this this universe, right? It was run and owned by farmers. These farmers lived there, they had a great life there. And then in the early 1930s, they disappeared, they left, they vanished. Now again the logical explanation for this happening is the National Parks Service. You see when the Great Depression happened, one of the ways to stimulate the economy was to create these national parks. And so a lot of the farmers that lived in and around Happy Valley sold their land basically to the government. They needed the money, they had to go start over again. Many people, for many people, for many Americans, for many people all over the world, the Great Depression changed everything. Now I'm sure selling their land to the government was not a happy time, even though it was necessary. And they had to have some money to go elsewhere and start over again. I'm sure that when these people established their farms in Happy Valley, they probably had ideas of passing the farm down to many generations. Farmers from my own experience love their land, they love their animals, they love what they do. So I can't imagine the energy of heartbreak is within the land that they had to take the money from the state in order to save their own prosperity. And again, this is the logical explanation. We do know now that the government still owns Happy Valley, it is still a nature preserve and a ghost town. But the residents don't buy it. Many of the residents believe that Happy Valley became deserted because of a plague, a plague of smallpox and malaria. However, this wasn't just an accidental plague. Many, many of the residents believe that a witch, a witch who lived in the outskirts of the town cursed the town. Shakespeare said it best when he said hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. It seems that there was a woman who lived in the outskirts of the town who had a bit of a relationship with a pretty prominent man in Happy Valley. Although this relationship was short lived, it didn't take long for this man to fall in love with another woman. And so the woman living on the outskirts of the town decided to perform witchcraft and curse the town. It wasn't long after the curse was placed on the town that the townspeople started to get sick. And over time, they eventually figured out what had happened, and they abandoned the town. Many locals say you can still sense the presence of this witch when you visit the outskirts of Happy Valley. Our next suspect, or legend, is the hook man. Now many communities have urban legends around a man that has a hook for an arm, but there might be some validity to this story in Happy Valley. You see, as I mentioned, the cemetery, which was built in 1866 in Happy Valley, housed a body of a Civil War veteran. This Civil War veteran had his arm amputated as a result from the war. They replaced the arm with a hook. This we know is true. There is a corpse of a Civil War veteran in the cemetery at Happy Valley that legitimately had a hook for an arm. Now it is stated that children were playing in the cemetery. I don't blame them. I grew up in a small town. Sometimes you got to go play in a cemetery because there's nothing else to do. Well, these children ended up breaking the headstone of this Civil War veteran. In my opinion, I don't think the children meant any harm by this. I think they were just being children. Well, they say that the spirit of this Civil War veteran started to attack the town. They said that you would hear him scratching his hook along the buildings and the houses where he would eventually murder the victims inside. If a serial killer ghost isn't going to force you to move away from your town, then I don't know what will. I would be terrified. I would definitely move. The next urban legend surrounding the ghost town of Happy Valley is probably the most sinister of all, and one that, sadly, probably has the most validity to it. We now understand that there is such thing as satanic ritual abuse. We know that in the United States alone, in present time, about 800,000 children go missing each year, never to be heard from again. Sadly, we know a lot of these children have met nefarious ends where they not only were trafficked, but were potentially used in religious sacrifices. I told you that the school was built in the year 1867, and unfortunately, all that remains of the school now is just the foundation. The school was burnt down. You see, there is a legend that many orphans who perhaps had been used ritualistically, well, the legend goes that their bodies were maybe put into the foundation of the school or in the chimney as a way to hide them. Now, 10 years ago, hearing that story, I would have thought it was crazy. Of course, back then, we had no idea what we know now. Now, no bodies or remains have been found around the school or in the chimney, but that still doesn't necessarily mean that there was a nefarious usage for the building. And I know for me that if I found out my small town was being used for this purpose, I would want to leave. You know you can't tell anyone because these are very, very powerful people who were doing this. So you just would want to leave. So it does seem like this town has a lot of interesting legends. Again, it could all just be simply a case of the great depression and the government coming in to rescue the people and purchase their land. Of course, as I said, that's the most logical explanation because it still is owned by the government to this day. But when I see videos of older locals, respectable locals telling you they won't set foot in the town at night, I tend to listen to them. They seem to know that there is something way more nefarious happening in this ghost town. And I put my trust in them. If I'm ever up in that area, I will definitely stay out of happy valley at night. All right, what do you think? Are you from that area of New York state? If so, I would love to hear your opinion. If you've had any crazy experiences or if there is another legend, that I am unaware of regarding happy valley, please leave it in the comments below. Does your town have a ghost town? If so, again, let me know in the comments below. And also, since this is Mystery Monday, what do you think? Do you think the town vanished because of the Great Depression and the purchase of land? Or do you think there is a more sinister reason why the residents abandoned their town? And once again, thank you to Josh McKay for doing our music and to Todd Roderick for helping me produce this video. I hope you guys have a wonderful day and I will talk to you soon. Bye.