The Melon Heads
By Ray Bendici | Category: Damned Investigations, Legends
The Damned Story: Growing up in Milford, one of the local stories we all heard about was about a group of giant-headed mutants who lived on the outskirts of town, a band of inbred freaks who were ready to prey Deliverance-style on whoever was careless or unfortunate enough to wander into their midst . . . .
Of course, I’m talking about: THE MELON HEADS!
Apparently, this legend isn’t limited to Milford — recently, I was telling a work friend about them, and she didn’t believe me, so she Googled it and discovered (through the glory of Wikipedia) that in addition to being legends in other states (Ohio and Michigan), the Melonheads were also indigenious to Monroe, Seymour, Weston, Oxford, Southbury, Trumbull and my current hometown of Shelton! I also saw that like Milford, many of these towns had “Melon Head Roads” — in Milford (back when I was growing up), it was Zion Hill Road; in Trumbull, it’s Velvet Street (aka “Dracula Drive” — another legend for another day); and in Shelton, it’s Saw Mill City Road.
Now, in Connecticut, the Melon Heads are allegedly everything from a group of escaped mental patients to a lost colony of inbred mountain folk dating back to Colonial times. However, I read an article a few years back (I think in the Fortean Times) talking about a group of isolated Appalachain mountain people in the Southeastern U.S. (Tennessee, Kentucky, eastern Virginia) called the Melungeon. In short, it’s believed the Melungeon are mixed-race descendants of European outcasts, freed slaves and Native Americans — the damned of early American society, in a way — who decided to stay to themselves, and in general, away from the mainstream.
In the article, it also mentioned that the term “Melungeon” was sometimes bastardized into “Melon Head.” So, it’s possible — although I have no evidence to prove this, and I’m no anthropologist — that at one point, there was a group of people living quietly and independently in the backwoods of Connecticut who had characteristics similar to the Melungeon, and somehow got branded as such. Then, over time, that got changed to Melon Head, and since people tend to fear what they don’t know about or understand, the stories of boogie-man horror were attributed to them.
That ignorance was passed down through the years, and the rest, as they say, is legendary.
Our Damned Experience: Well, when I saw how close it was to our place of employment, I immediately dragged my non-believing friend (with some resistance) and another co-worker out on our lunch hour to take a ride down ol’ Melon Head Road. Being the middle of the day it was hardly a spooky ride, but as we drove along Saw Mill City Road, I could see why people might want to believe this could be Melon Head stomping grounds — it’s a narrow, twisting road past the Means Brook Reservoir and through isolated woods with lots of “No Trespassing” signs along the way. The roadway even becomes dirt for a short portion — while driving, I surreptitiously slipped my car into neutral, revved the gas hard and said, “Oh no, the chain fell off! We’re screwed!” which brought one of the best momentary expressions of abject horror I’ve ever had the pleasure of creating on another person’s face (my wife and kids included).
Needless to say, it was a pretty — and uneventful — drive. No banjo-playin’ mutants, no being bent over logs, no squealing like pigs, no Melon Heads. Then again, it was daytime, so who knows what happens after dark?
Update: On a spooky and misty day in December 2008, we returned to Saw Mill City Road and also paid a visit to Velvet Street, cameras in hand. We took a bunch of photos and although we were hoping to see a mailbox with a telling name on it like “M. Ellen Head,” we didn’t encounter any mutants (unless you count the lone postman sitting alone in his truck sleeping or texting someone — we couldn’t tell, and to be honest, we hope that’s all he was doing).
If You Go: As mentioned, the three “Melon Head Roads” that we know of are Zion Hill Rd. in Milford, Velvet Street in Trumbull and Saw Mill City Rd. in Shelton. All three are public thoroughfares, although through private neighborhoods. If you do drive along any of them after dark, we do recommend exercising caution as the ones we’ve been along are dark and curvy. In the event that you are abducted by Melon Heads, please try to take pictures — we’ll be happy to post them here!
http://www.damnedct.com/contact-us/
Hi Ray – I have recently started the Connecticut chapter of Drinking Skeptically and I’m wondering what your background is. You might want to join us or come and speak to us about a specific topic. We meet in Fairfield near the train station on the third Thursday of each month. Most interesting to me is that I also grew up in Milford and vividly remember the melon head stories!
http://skeptics.meetup.com/183/
Some friends and I drove down Velvet Street or “Dracula Drive” tonight actually. No lie, we found a severed deer leg. It would not be surprising for a car to accidentally hit a deer on that dark, windy road but given the story of the “Melon Heads” that we had all heard growing up in Trumbull, it freaked us out quite a bit.
Noooooo! That’s freaky. I probably would have cried.
I remember hearing about these stories during the 20 years we lived in Milford and found your background research very interesting. While a lot of people talked about them, I don’t ever remember anyone who actually claimed to have seen them.
Hydrocephalus-the increased accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid within the ventricles of the brain. This condition may happen to infants, children or even adults, and causes various types of deformatiies of the head and face. There are surgical procedures today for some of these cases. In the past anyone who had a child or a family member that was deformed in any way was a cause for family shame and was often hidden away.
well ray you should have asked. the melonheads house is about a mile down on the right side of velvet road coming from the tashua side of trumbull. the property had an abandoned paddleball court and an abandoned outdoor pool. (apparently the melonheads had some money) they were very well alive and fruitful(pardon the pun) around 1980, and growing up in trumbull, my friends and i would frequent “dracula drive” often for keg parties at the reservoir. no one was ever hurt, but many were scared for real! oh those were the days…
I’ve heard this story and its always the same.. I’ve been told that along time ago in trumbull/monroe that down velvet road aka tashua there use to be an asylum but it got burnt down. Later police and official found out that some of the patients where missing.. Known as the infamous melon heads. I’ve been down velvet so many times…night and day…never have I seen anyone while I was there
i think all these people are crazy and all need to get lifes no joke grow up…..who cares if there real give up go be a dumbass stand in the middle of the woods at one of these locations and yell out here i am you ugly mothers and see if they coem out!!! wow and this girl stephanie yo mah give me a call ill holla!!! big kissses baby!!!!
[...] the ever-popular Melon Heads, the Raggies are well-documented and did exist without question. Back when Mt. Riga’s iron [...]
My family and i went to Dracula Drive and we were looking for melon heads but we saw a racoon after that my sister and my dad were looking out the window and they saw something run so fast and they thought it was a melon head and i was so scared that night.My aunt lives on that street so when i was little we walked on Dracula Drive and i did not know about this when i was little.Today my dad told me that he worked at the hospitol that the melon heads exscaped from but he did not work there he just fixed the alarms.THE END
I’m from Northford, part of North Branford in the southern part of the state, and we have the precise same legend in our town about a road that leads up one of the mountains. Strange how things crop up in different places.
Colleen,
Are you talking about mongoloid road?
What a terrific night I had with my son, after a day at wolf park for the end of school year fun, the teacher as well as some students decided for some odd reason to bring up melon heads, well my son at night time would not go to bed, he wouldn’t even go to the bathoom by himself, after an hour of explaining about how it was just a tale that someone made up, he still won’t GO TO SLEEP ! For the record I grew up in stevenson, monroe and this is the first I’m hearing about it. Lets face it folks if they were real and still around and canabals as I was told, I think people would have reported people missing and it would be all over the news. Thank You to my sons teacher for sharing. Bet she had a great nights sleep!
[...] Well, I think we all know that better as Melon Head Road … alleged home to the Melon Heads! [...]
Lets not forget that they also live on Edmunds Rd. in Oxford and also on Jeremy Swamp Rd. in Southbury. I think these are the cousins to the ones in Monroe……
[...] much like their more famous “cousins,” the Melon Heads of the Trumbull-Shelton-Milford area, the Frog People are said to be some sort of inbred population [...]
I’m a teen living in Milford now and the story still goes on. I literally have driven down Zion hill looking for them before late at night. lol. I’ve heard people have seen them but i personally havent
From what I’ve heard the Melon Head folk tale is widespread. There’s melon head families all over the US.
grew up in naugatuck and all the melon head stories I heard as a kid had them in oxford. I have spent many dark nights driving around edmunds rd (melon head rd) with my friends smoking and drinking(stupid teenagers) looking for the melons.
I also grew up in Milford in the 1970s (went to Jonathan Law HS) and remember the stories.
I always thought that ‘melon head’ probably referred to hydroencephaly (water on the brain).
[...] As mentioned, the most popular articles on Damned Connecticut have all been related to The Haunting in Connecticut, including our interview with Ray Garton and Steve’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated (sure!) Q&A with Nancy Boucher, aunt of the Snedeker family. The other top stories include our listings of Halloween events, the articles about Remington Arms (sparked by the “Ghost Adventures” visit there), Dunnellen Hall, Seaside Sanatorium and of course, the ever-loving, always-popular Melon Heads! [...]
im a melon head
my uncle used to scare us to death telling us about the melon heads when we were little & we believed him even though he made us believe they lived in devils hopyard right down the road from where we lived.
I grew up close to Velvet St. in Monroe in the 70′s. Close enough that I would ride my bike there. One kid in school in the 70′s told a story of fighting off Mellon heads on Velvet St. back then. I’m sure he was full of BS, but it was fun to hear.
I have ridden my bike down that road and also drove to work going out of my way using Velvet St. many times. Never got the feeling there was anything strange there. Nice place to see wild life.
I also remember my cousins talking about Mellon Heads in Stratford back around 1970. Seems this story is all over Connecticut. Kind of neat to have our own legend so close to home.
Good story of it here:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5516146/the_melonheads_of_trumbull_connecticut.html?cat=16
The only compressible experience I have had was when I drank an immense amount of absinthe. I ran around my University’s campus with some friends in search of the green fairy. Unfortunately the hallucinogen was extracted (Oh US law)…and people merely thought by my actions I was tripping. But alas…I was not.
comparable** sorry auto spell check is out of hand.
I dont know what to think about the Melon Head Kids, this is the first time I heard of it and from looking up info all the stories in someways are not the same but all had some of the same info, either way scary and makes ya wonder?? I know I would not ever try to see for myself!