The Devil's Chair (Iowa)

The Devil's Chair (Iowa)

The term devil’s chair (or "haunted chair") in folklore is frequently attached to a class of funerary or memorial sculpture common in the United States during the nineteenth century and often associated with legend tripping. Nineteenth century graveyards sometimes included carved chairs for the comfort of visitors. In this function, the object was known as a "mourning chair," and cemeteries have since provided benches for similar purposes, most often movable units of the type used in parks, but also specimens in the tradition of the carved chairs.

Some carved chairs were probably not intended for use as anything but monuments, while the "monubench" is still commercially available. Once the original purpose of these chairs fell out of fashion, superstitions developed in association with the act of sitting in them. In a typical example, local young people dare one another to visit the site, most often after dark, at midnight, or on some specified night such as Hallowe’en or New Year’s Eve. Variously, the stories suggest the person brave enough to sit in the chair at such a time may be punished for impudence or rewarded for courage.