About This Location
A restaurant that operated in a 1741 farmhouse on Amherst Street until the building was demolished around 2021.
The Ghost Story
The circa 1741 farmhouse on Amherst Street in Nashua carried one of New Hampshire's most enduring ghost legends for over two centuries before it was demolished in the summer of 2021 to make way for a Cumberland Farms gas station. The story centers on Elizabeth Ford, the young wife of an English sea captain who built the house and spent months at a time away at sea. According to the legend that was printed on the restaurant's menu for years, the captain returned from a nine-month voyage to discover Elizabeth had given birth in his absence. In a jealous rage, he murdered the infant and buried it beneath a tree on the property, then threw Elizabeth's body down the well.
The farmhouse changed hands through various families over the next two centuries before becoming the Country Tavern restaurant, which operated for 25 years serving New England fare in its rustic Colonial dining rooms. From the beginning, staff and patrons reported phenomena they attributed to Elizabeth's restless spirit. Her ghost appeared most frequently as a woman in white, glimpsed in the upstairs windows overlooking the back parking lot and in the second-floor dining room. She was described as having long white hair and wearing a flowing white dress.
Elizabeth's most distinctive behavior involved her interactions with women, particularly in the ladies' restroom, where she would play with their hair. She seemed to have an affinity for female guests, touching their hair and jewelry while they dined. The poltergeist activity was equally persistent: full martini glasses slid across level tabletops and crashed to the floor, dishes flew off kitchen racks and shattered, and objects moved across rooms with no visible cause. One customer witnessed a second-floor door repeatedly opening and closing on its own, then swinging violently, though staff confirmed no one was in the room.
The building also had a shadowy face that appeared in the windows during evening hours, and late-night staff reported unexplained footsteps echoing through the empty farmhouse. The kitchen was a particular hotspot, with items mysteriously breaking or rearranging themselves.
A paranormal specialist was brought in during the late 1990s to perform a cleansing and offer Elizabeth peace. Staff reported a noticeable decrease in activity afterward, though sightings never fully ceased. The legend was so well known that it appeared in multiple books and television segments, repeated so many times that people took it as established fact, though some historians have questioned whether the backstory was ever verified.
When the building was torn down in 2021, locals wondered aloud whether Elizabeth's spirit had finally found rest or whether she lingered at the site. A New England Legends podcast episode explored whether the new Cumberland Farms might inherit her ghost, noting that spirits are often tied to the land rather than the structure built upon it.