Case file · Folklore / legend
Chocorua's curse
Legend says Chocorua, an Indigenous man of the White Mountains, leapt from the peak that bears his name after cursing the settlers whom he blamed for his son's death.
1830 CE · 43.95, -71.27 · status: legend
The account
The common version comes largely from Lydia Maria Child's short story 'Chocorua's Curse', published in 1830, set around 1720 in what is now Tamworth, New Hampshire. Other versions say he fell while hunting or was driven up the mountain.
The sceptical view
No authentic record of Chocorua's life is known; the curse is a 19th-century literary creation.