You know a curse is serious when it takes down an entire lineage and still manages to bother people after everyone else is dead. William Hayden was a wealthy landowner in Albany, Vermont in the early 1800s, but he never repaid his even wealthier mother-in-law for loaning him some major funds over the years. After much complaining, she became mysteriously ill, accused William of poisoning her, and with her dying breath said "The Hayden name shall die in the third generation and the last to bear the name shall die in poverty." The Hayden family barely made it another 100 years after being plagued with financial catastrophes and illnesses. Phantom music, mysterious lights, and other assorted paranormal activity is said to haunt their estate in Albany -- along with the ghost of vengeful mother-in-law, too. She is really mad at this guy. In some versions, William Hayden was a Gatsby-esque party boy who quite knowingly blew all his mother-in-law's funds on lavish parties and ornate decorations for his home, building the family's local fame and infamy... which probably just fueled the rumor mill. And when all the Haydens died, a wealthy Canadian family moved in their mansion and allegedly used the home for bootlegging and smuggling Chinese immigrants for slave labor. So yeah, even if the curse ISN'T real, the house itself still has some dark history.
