Chicken Rock: How a Timid Confession Became the Main Symbol of a Small Town (7 photos)

Verona may be home to the most famous love story in literature, but the small village of Newbury, New Hampshire, USA, is home to the most captivating legend of our time.





Few people outside the state have heard of it, but for the residents of Newbury, it's a favorite.



It all started about thirty years ago. On the side of Route 103, which runs through Newbury, stood a small white house. In the backyard was a chicken farm. And on that farm lived a beautiful sixteen-year-old named Gretchen Ruhl, who helped the family raise the chickens. Gretchen had a secret admirer (or maybe two), but this story is about one guy who was too shy to approach her first.





And then one moonlit night, he took a brush and painted twenty-centimeter-high letters on a huge boulder conveniently located right across the street from her house. The inscription read: "FARMERESS, I LOVE YOU."

The next morning, Gretchen saw the message. And, as he hoped, she guessed who wrote it. What happened next is a mystery shrouded in darkness. Legend is silent on the matter. Did they meet? Did they exchange letters? Did they steal kisses? Nobody knows.



Gretchen Ruhl grew up and went off to college. The inscription remained, gradually fading in the rain and hidden behind the thorny bushes. The story could have ended there.

But it didn't. One day, many years later, new paint appeared on the stone and a new message: "I STILL LOVE YOU."



Instantly, the boulder became a local landmark. Residents began calling it by its name and smiling mysteriously, while passing drivers wondered what it meant. Every few years, someone would clear the overgrowth and freshen up the letters. Until one day in 1997, two workers from the Department of Transportation arrived and scrubbed off the love letter. Someone complained to the city administration about the graffiti.



But the stone didn't stay clean for long. The stubborn graffiti returned, as large and as emphatic as before. And this time, before the Department could intervene, Newbury residents collected nearly two hundred signatures and submitted a petition demanding the graffiti be left alone. The Department relented.



Today, as you drive along Highway 103 through Newbury, you can still see the "Chicken Rock" on the west side of the road. It stands in its place. And the inscription on it, too.