Most Haunted Road In WNY Has Gotten National Fame
There are countless haunted tales and urban legends that are all throughout Western New York and the rest of New York State. You've probably heard many of them over the years.
There is one story of a supposedly haunted road that just might be the most haunted road in New York and it's already widely famous in the Western New York region.
Do you know the legend of the Pigman?
The road in question is Holland Road in Angola. The secluded road has a very famous bridge that arches over Holland Road and this is where legend says that a man (a butcher) stuck the heads of pigs on stakes to keep people away from his property.
Holland Road is famously called "Pigman Road" by local residents.
A group of teenagers is said to have made fun of him by pulling a prank and that's when the "Pigman" murdered them and stuck their heads on stakes.
That's the most famous haunted story of the "pigman," but the tale goes much deeper than that.
This area is where the Angola Horror took place.
In December of 1867, a train derailed here and uncoupled cars fell into the gorge below, killing nearly 50 people. The accident made national headlines at the time and led to railway reform.
According to writer M.C. Hageman, who compiled the full account of Holland Road and the Angola Horror, two boys who were collecting coal that day for their home fire, also decided to take a few railroad tiles from the track. This would lead to the accident.
The train accident and the lives lost in 1867 add further to the legend of Holland Road and this area of Angola, NY.
One of the boys who were walking along the tracks that day later had a child that was supposedly born with a cleft palate and that child (Williams Derrecks) would later grow up to live on Holland Road, where he assisted a butcher as one of his jobs and was said to be a hoarder with his wife when he got older, living on Holland Road. He would put pigs' heads in his yard to keep people away as the town was becoming busier with added homes in the late '40s.
It wasn't until the '70s when the strange stories caught on and an elderly Williams (allegedly the "Pigman") had run-ins with locals and authorities.
The last few homes on this part of Holland Road burned down and the deterioration was evident. Now, the road is a tight squeeze for cars to get down, especially by the bridge and many people have visited the site over the years (especially at night), to investigate the legend of the "pigman."
The story of "Pigman Road" has gotten national recognition, too. The Travel Channel did an episode on the story for their Hometown Horror series in 2019 and was even turned into an independent movie in 2020.
What's interesting is this story, while certainly fabricated and stuff of legend does go back to an actual person and some events that did take place here. The train accident in 1867 just adds further to the legend and mystery of Holland Road or as many call it, "Pigman Road."