Devil’s Road and the Cult House
There are woods in southeastern Pennsylvania, right on the Delaware border, whose twisted appearance has made it the star of a blockbuster movie. True, the film in question, The Village, was written and directed by a local boy, M. Night Shayamalan, but when an A-list Hollywood director brings a woods full of misshapen trees into the Cineplex, you know the legend has legs.
Devil’s Road winds its way a couple of miles through woods in Chadds Ford, just north of the Delaware border. Map readers will recognize it as Cossart Road, and it has been known for its general aura of evil for decades. The exact location of the weird part of the stretch is often misreported as being somewhere in northern Delaware, but all the stories agreed on one point: The trees that line this narrow, winding lane rear back from the road as if recoiling from something unspeakable.
Farther into the woods, they say, up a densely wooded hillside, stands a massive stone mansion known as the Cult House, which Delaware residents claim was once owned by a number of the DuPont family. The Cult House, naturally, housed a cult of some kind, but the nature of its ceremonies remains a bit vague. Fans of plutocratic conspiracy theories spin wild stories of DuPont family members marrying cousins in the house so the family’s wealth would stay with the fold, and then using the place to hide whatever inbred spawn these unnatural unions produced. The less fanciful rumors fall back on the old favorites: Satanists and the Ku Klux Klan. The house’s windows are said to be in the shape of a cross or, among the Satanist believers, in the shape of an inverted cross.
But it’s getting harder and harder to explore Devil’s Road. For one thing, the street signs have been removed from Kennett Pike, so it’s easy to miss the Cossart Road turn. (Don’t mistakenly turn into a private road called Cossart Manor Drive a few miles up the pike.) Even if you find the road, you’ll see that it’s liberally posted with NO STOPPING and NO TRESPASSING signs. Too many noisy explorers have imbibed there by night, disturbing the residents, spray-painting everything in sight, and committing various acts of vandalism. The police and private security guards regularly patrol the lane, which probably accounts for the many tales of visitors being chased down the road.
So we’d advise people to proceed with caution when they think about treading down the darkness of Devil’s Road. Don’t pull over on this dark and winding strip, unless you want to get ticketed for parking in a no-stopping zone. And certainly don’t start tramping through private property if you fear of being arrested is greater than your curiosity about mysterious places. After all, you can always get a good look at the woods in the film The Village instead.
Devil Worship and Dead Animals
Driving down the road toward the mansion, we noticed a pile of dead animals, mostly raccoons, slit from throat to genitals and completely gutted. It was like there was just a frame of the animal left. When we finally approached the mansion, I was even more disgusted. Hanging from from the black iron gate were more carcasses like the ones we’d just seen. It’s also said that if you go at night, you can hear the Satanic worshipping that goes on inside, word for word. Fortunately, we were there during the day. -Brooke Meadows
Checking Out the Cult House
When I was in high school, there was one particularly prevalent story about a mansion located in the woods of the Brandywine Valley. Everyone called it Cult House. There is a “guardhouse” on the grounds that houses a fleet of red pickup trucks. If you drive past the house too often, one or several of the trucks will come out of the house and chase you away. No matter how close it gets, you will never be able to catch a glimpse of the driver’s face. According to legend, a human sacrifice is performed on the grounds every Halloween.
Well, that’s the rumor. Here is my personal experience with the Cult House. (I have been occasionally driving by the place with friends and researching its history for about 7 years now.) The trees do grew at an extreme angle away from the house. I’ve never seen trees grow so off-kilter before. This phenomenon stops once you get about 1/4 mile past the house. Red trucks fro a guardhouse actually followed me on two occasions. The first night, and the truck’s lights were off. This is amazing, because there are no streetlights, and the trees allow in no moonlight. I couldn't’ understand how the driver was able to even stay on the road! I was behind it at first. The truck pulled over and waited for me to pass. It then pulled out and followed me until I was several miles from the house. I had one passenger in the car, and you can imagine the state we were in. We were scared to death, but REALLY excited!
The next time was also at night, this time with a different friend. After we had driven past the guardhouse several times, we noticed that we were being followed by a red truck. We hadn’t seen it even come onto the road. We never saw the driver’s face. Again, we were followed until we were several miles from the house; then the truck just pulled over to the side of the road. Again the headlights were off.
I have been able to find absolutely no evidence of sacrificial rites being performed during Halloween or at other times. I have also, up to this point, been unsuccessful in trying to dig up deeds or any type of records of transfer for the property. -Deena Haiber
On Bended Tree
There is a legend about a road nicknamed Devil’s Road, located off of Route 202 near Concord Pike. As rumor has it, there is a house or a church that used to perform Satanic rituals. At the beginning of the road, there are two arrow-shaped pickets known to many as the Gates of Hell. On this road, the trees are bent away away from the church, and there are many trees spray-painted with the number 666, and many other disturbing words and images. There is a gate to the side of the road, and off that road behind the gate is the church. I have been on this road many times, and the only strange thing I saw was on Mischief Night (the night before Halloween), when I and my friends saw shadowy orange lights lighting up the house. I am pretty sure that it was candlelight, but we did not want to make any assumptions. -CiCi
Chased by Satan on His Very Own Road
The entryway to Satan Road, as it is affectionately called, is so overgrown with trees and vines that it resembles a tunnel. Once you start down the road, there is no turning back. It is very windy and, despite being a two-lane road, is uncomfortably come around one of the bends, and you see it plain as day and indisputable: the Cult House. All the trees near it grow up a few feet; then they all turn at an angle so sharp that they are almost parallel to the ground, always away from the house. It’s not just two or three trees; it’s every tree for several hundred feet.
The Satan worshippers wait for your arrival at the entrance to the road in a black SUV. As soon as you start to slow down and turn, they turn on their headlights, pop out form hiding, and chase you out to a bridge on Route 100. I myself have been chased once by the SUV and have been some sort of eerie bright blue flash when we were about to enter the road; that scared us enough to not bother with the road that night. -Greg H.
Run When You See the Whites of Their Eyes!
I hail from the great town of Broomall, in Delaware County. If anyone has written from my area, it’s probably been about Satanville, located off Route 1 just before the Brandyville Civil War Museum. All my life I’ve heard the stories about the place. Sometimes called Hells House, it is actually an old church in the middle of a field. You go down this road where the trees bend completely away from the road. Legend has it that the devil, in a fit of rage, let out an ear-piercing scream down the road one night, and from that point on, the trees have grown away from it.
Now comes the tricky part-finding the church. We followed the road for at least 2 hours, until we found the gate leading back to the church. Of course, the road is completely littered with KKK and devil worshipper graffiti. The gate was secured with a fresh padlock, and the path leading back to the church was extremely overgrown; thus my Bronco would not have fit. You definitely need a Jeep or just to go on foot. Just around the the time of finding the gate, a car passed us. The driver’s faces were completely white, with dark hair, sporting the gothic look. Their eyes were also white. Like perhaps they were rolled up all the way. Needless to say, we were outta there like a bat out of hell.
Numerous people, including close friends, have been there. Usually you get chased away by black pickup trucks or black Broncos that chase you to the exist before veering off. -Steve
Chased Off Devil’s Road
I have been on Devil’s Road numerous times, at least a hundred. I have been up to the Devil’s House. The roof is lined with metal crows all facing in the same direction, and there is a white cement bench in the front yard with a demon’s face perfectly carved on it. People really do chase you out of there. I remember one time around 2 PM, I was driving with one of my friends on Devil’s Road, and a black SUV sped up behind us, then turned into the woods. There was no dirt road or anything; it just turned right into the woods. Then the next thing I knew, he was coming full speed right toward us. one time when there was a full moon, I could see a fire and the outlines of about 12-15 people standing in a circle around it. Then I got chased off by two Bronco SUVs. -Stephanie
