by Tom Ogden
Rowan Family Cemetery
Bardstown
The unusual and possibly paranormal phenomenon in the Rowan Family Cemetery (also known as Federal Hill Cemetery and the Old Kentucky Home State Park Cemetery) centers on the obelisk marking the grave of John Rowan, who was one of Kentucky’s most prominent nineteenth-century politicians. His mansion, Federal Hill, was a popular meeting place for government officials and local society. Stephen Foster, the composer of “My Old Kentucky Home,” was Rowan’s cousin and often visited the house as well. In 1922 Rowan’s granddaughter sold Federal Hill to the State of Kentucky, and the mansion became the centerpiece of My Old Kentucky Home State Park when it was established in 1936.
Rowan died on July 13, 1843. He left strict instructions not to place a monument or even a headstone on his grave in the family cemetery at Federal Hill. He felt his life’s work and the estate were enough of a testament to his memory. Friends and relatives disregarded his wishes and erected a tall obelisk at his grave. Within a few weeks, the pillar fell from its base. A stonemason was called to repair and right the column, but he was asked to return a few months later when the pillar toppled again. Rumors began to spread that Rowan’s ghost had returned to show everyone he was serious about not wanting a tombstone. The obelisk has fallen several times, and it still does occasionally. No natural explanation has ever been found.
LOUISIANA
St. Edwards Church Cemetery
Church Point
Many visitors to the cemetery behind St. Edwards Church are there to seek out the grave of Charlene Richard, a Cajun girl who died of acute lymphatic leukemia at the age of twelve on August 11, 1959. Because of the serene, peaceful way in which she faced death—despite being in intense pain—people have come to believe that her spirit has the power to heal others. Her apparition has never materialized, but every year thousands of supplicants drop notes into a box affixed to “Saint” Charlene’s tombstone. Many people claim to have been cured of various ailments after making a pilgrimage to the gravesite.
St. Roch Cemetery #1
New Orleans
Rev. Peter Leonard Thevis founded St. Roch Cemetery, also known as Campo Santo (Holy Country), in 1867 to fulfill a promise he made to the Lord. He had prayed for his parish to be spared from that year’s devastating yellow fever epidemic, and miraculously no one in his congregation died from the dreaded disease. The burial ground’s chapel, also built by Thevis, is known throughout the city for its Good Friday services. Visitors to St. Roch Cemetery #1 have reported hearing the sound of a dog barking, but no canine is ever seen. Nonetheless, the spectral image of a large, black dog sometimes shows up in photographs and videos shot there.
MAINE
Bucksport Cemetery
Bucksport
Born in Massachusetts in 1719, Jonathan Buck rose to become a colonel during the American Revolution. After the war he moved to Haverhill, Massachusetts, where he was a successful businessman and a justice of the peace. He later relocated to Maine and founded the eponymous community of Bucksport. When he died there on March 18, 1795, an obelisk was erected over his grave in the town cemetery. Almost immediately, a reddish stain resembling a woman’s leg and pointed foot appeared on the granite column directly beneath his name. Despite several attempts to remove the image, nothing worked. Even when it was sandblasted away, the mark would soon return. Finally, the family gave up trying. The rumor spread that during his time in Massachusetts, Colonel Buck had presided over a witchcraft trial. He had found the woman guilty and sentenced her to death. At her execution, she cursed Buck and swore that she would come back from the Other Side to avenge herself. The ruddy stain on the Buck monument is said to be evidence that her spirit has returned.
MARYLAND
Druid Ridge Cemetery
Pikesville
Although an infamous long-term “haunting” no longer occurs at Druid Ridge Cemetery, it was such a mainstay of local folklore that the story begs to be told. In 1905, twenty years before his death, Gen. Felix Agnus prepared his family burial plot and marked it with an immense statue of a woman in mourning. Sculpted by Eduard L. A. Pausch in the style of the famous Augustus Saint-Gaudens statue named Grief in Rock Creek Cemetery (see Washington, DC, below), the brooding, dark figure at Druid Ridge Cemetery soon acquired the sobriquet “Black Aggie.” An urban legend arose that the statue’s eyes would glow a fiery red at midnight, and anyone who stared into them would become blind. It was said that pregnant women who walked in the statue’s shadow would have a miscarriage, and the ghosts of people buried in the graveyard would gather at Black Aggie’s feet. Daring to spend the night seated in the statue’s lap became a teenage rite of passage. Unfortunately, the artwork was also a target for vandalism, so in 1967 the Agnus family donated the statue to the Smithsonian Institution. Today it sits in the rear courtyard of the Dolley Madison House on Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, adjacent to the Federal Courts building. There have been no reports of the statue coming to life or harming anyone there.
Gardens of Faith Memorial Gardens
Baltimore
Also known as the Gardens of Faith Cemetery, the memorial gardens opened in 1940. It has approximately six thousand interments on eighty-six acres. The graveyard boasts at least two ghosts. The first is a nondescript man who wanders the property during the day. If anyone makes too much noise, however, he’ll vanish and reappear on the other side of the cemetery. Oddly, the spectre is never seen at night. That’s when a Gray Lady takes over. Her apparition materializes at sundown and roams the burial ground until dawn. No one knows the identity of either phantom.
Mount St. Mary’s University Cemetery
Emmitsburg
The Mount St. Mary’s University Cemetery is located on a hillside overlooking the school. In the late nineteenth century, Henry Dealman was a professor of music at Mount St. Mary’s, and for many years he performed an organ concert on Christmas Eve accompanied by his son Larry, a flutist. Unfortunately, the two became estranged, so the son stopped taking part in the concerts. Dealman died in 1882 and was buried in the university cemetery. Stricken with grief, the son returned to the school to perform in the Christmas Eve concerts in his father’s memory. After each recital, Larry would climb up to the cemetery to play at his father’s grave. Time took its toll, and the son, too, died, but students say the strains of a phantom flute can still be heard on Christmas Eve, echoing down the hill.
Another campus ghost story concerns Leander, a slave who was given to the university in the early 1800s in exchange for a student’s tuition. He was often caught stealing, so his left hand was cut off as punishment. It was buried outside McCaffrey Hall, where he and most of the other slaves were housed. Leander stayed on at Mount St. Mary’s after the Civil War and became a beloved figure at the school. He was eventually interred in the university cemetery, but his spirit may not rest peacefully. Leander’s hand is sometimes heard—and seen—tapping on upper-story windows at McCaffrey. Rumor has it that the hand has also been spotted scurrying down hallways and has turned up under students’ pillows or in their dresser drawers.
MASSACHUSETTS
Friends Cemetery
Leicester
Friends Cemetery, sometimes called Quaker Cemetery, dates to the 1730s and is owned by the Worcester–Pleasant Street Friends Meeting. It’s acquired the nickname “Spider Gates Cemetery” because the design on the gates resembles spiderwebs. For some reason, the gates got the reputation for being the Eighth Gate to Hell. (Stull Cemetery in Kansas is famously nicknamed the Seventh Gate to Hell.) Apparitions in Friends Cemetery include a man hanging from a tree, who is seen on brightly moonlit evenings. The disembodied sound of children’s laughter is heard along with bone-chilling howling noises. The burial ground is also prone to isolated areas of fog and mist. And in the back of the graveyard, there’s a headstone for Earle Marmaduke, who died in 1839. People say that if you walk around the marker ten times at midnight and then put your ear to the tombstone, you’ll hear
him moaning or talking to you.
Holy Cross Cemetery
Malden
Established in 1868, Holy Cross Cemetery has more than half a million interments on its 180 acres. One of its ghosts is a Woman in White who is seen walking on or crossing Lynn Street, which runs through the center of the graveyard. Legend has it that she was killed on her wedding night and is searching the burial ground for her husband. The cemetery also has a hitchhiking ghost, a Lady in Gray, who stands along Lynn Street as well. Whenever a driver stops to offer her a ride, however, the spectre evaporates.
Old Hill Burying Ground
Newburyport
Old Hill Burying Ground was established in 1729. There’s a rumor that a maze of underground tunnels runs from the cemetery to the center of town and the wharf area, but there are no records that such a labyrinth exists. The massive Pierce tomb holds seven members of the Pierce family, the first interment occurring in 1838. The spectres of a man and a woman have been seen leaving the mausoleum, walking to the edge of the graveyard, and then returning to the tomb. The ghost of Col. Moses Titcomb, who died in 1755, sometimes pops his head out of the ground at his nearby grave, and at least one photo exists of the spooky phenomenon. Finally, there are claims that some visitors to the Old Hill Burying Ground become “possessed” or take on different personalities. They return to normal as soon as they leave the property.
Palmer River Cemetery
Rehoboth Village Cemetery
Rehoboth
Rehoboth, Massachusetts, was founded in 1653, and for a town of just over 11,500 people, it’s amazing that it has two such actively haunted burial grounds. The Palmer River Meeting House was founded on Lake Street in 1721. Its graveyard became variously known as Palmer River Cemetery, Palmer River Burying Ground, and Palmer River Churchyard Cemetery. Among its many ghosts is a little boy, dressed in rags, who limps on a misshapen leg. Visitors have spotted the spectres of two men and another boy standing next to a row of three headstones, and a phantom black coffin has materialized at one edge of the cemetery. There’s yet a third young boy who runs around a tombstone, giggling or singing “Happy Birthday.” Sometimes people see him, but more often they merely hear him. There are other disembodied voices as well: One sings in Irish; the other calls out, “Carriage. They never sent. Poor, poor.”
In 1773 the congregation tore down its church and moved next to the site of Rehoboth Village Cemetery, now also known as Rehoboth Historic Cemetery #8. The graveyard is home to the ghost of a late-middle-aged man in nineteenth-century attire. Some have suggested he is Ephraim Bliss, but the spectre has also been seen standing and kneeling at the grave of a William S. Reynolds in the southwest corner of the burial ground. When the figure is spotted, he’s either praying or alternately crying and laughing. Once the spirit realizes he’s been noticed, though, he turns to the onlooker and starts swearing—especially if the visitor is female—before dissolving away. His ghostly voice is always thin and hollow as if it’s coming from far away. Occasionally the phantom is seen straddling and beating the wraith of a woman in Victorian-era wardrobe, repeatedly shouting the name “Catherine.” There are other ghosts in the cemetery, too. One is the apparition of an old man who has been known to scream at visitors in their cars or pound on the vehicle’s windows. Two other spirits are an unidentified Woman in White and a little boy. Areas of the graveyard are prone to cold spots, and jeers and whistles have been heard coming from the adjacent woods.
MICHIGAN
Reynolds Cemetery
St. John’s Catholic Cemetery
Jackson
On November 21, 1883, seventy-three-year-old Jacob Crouch was the victim of a mass murder along with his daughter Eunice White (in her ninth month of pregnancy); her husband, Henry; and Moses Polley, a cattle buyer who was visiting from Pennsylvania. All were shot to death in their beds.
On January 2, 1884, Eunice’s sister, Susan Halcomb, was discovered dead in her bedroom. James Foy, one of Crouch’s farmhands, had also been killed. (Rumor circulated that Halcomb had been force-fed rat poison; the official cause of death was a bad heart. Foy’s death was ruled a suicide.) Susan’s husband, Daniel, and Jacob’s son, Judd, were charged with the November murders. Daniel was tried and found not guilty. Judd was never brought to trial. No other arrests were ever made for the crime.
Jacob was buried in Reynolds Cemetery about a mile from his home, southwest of downtown Jackson; Eunice and her husband were buried in St. John’s Catholic Cemetery on the south side of town. Reynolds Cemetery is rural, no longer in use, and unkempt; St. John’s is active and well maintained. Every year, sometime between nightfall on November 21 and dawn on November 22, Eunice’s spirit rises from her grave in St. John’s Catholic Cemetery in the form of a hazy, glowing mist. The translucent cloud then drifts the five miles west to Reynolds Cemetery and floats through the graveyard until it reaches her father’s grave, where it dissipates into nothingness.
MINNESOTA
College of Saint Benedict Cemetery
St. Joseph
The College of Saint Benedict for women and the nearby Saint John’s University for men are both liberal arts schools, and their students can attend classes at both institutions. The institutions are often paired under one name: the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University. Benedictine Sisters established their school in 1913, and it’s still the sole Benedictine college for women in the United States. The spectre of a nun who is buried in the Saint Benedict cemetery sometimes appears to students as they pass the graveyard—but only if they’re in emotional distress.
Loon Lake Cemetery
Jackson
Now abandoned and usually overgrown, Loon Lake Cemetery was established in 1876 and served as a burial ground for Jackson and Petersburg. Its last interment was in 1926. There were at least a hundred known burials in the Loon Lake Cemetery, many of them relocations from other graveyards, but records are missing for about 10 percent of the interments. Also, not all the gravesites were marked. There were never more than about seventy tombstones, and due to the ravages of time and vandalism, twenty of them remain at most.
The exact circumstances are unknown that led the townsfolk of Petersburg to accuse, try, and convict Mary Jane Terwillegar of witchcraft, but the eighteen-year-old was beheaded in March 1880 and buried far out of town in Loon Lake Cemetery. Some versions of the story say the ax that was used to decapitate her was placed in the grave as well. A few years later, two more women (whose names are lost) were executed for witchcraft and interred in Loon Lake Cemetery as well. The burial ground soon became known as the “witches’ graveyard.”
It’s said that anyone who damages or even disturbs the witches’ graves will die an unnatural death. Most versions of the legend focus on Mary Jane, stating that people must step specifically on her grave. A variation of the old wives’ tale says that rather than treading on Mary Jane’s grave, the offender must jump over it three times to be cursed. An early bit of folklore tells what happened to a hunter who accidentally walked across her grave: While driving home, he pulled his car to the side of the road to wait out a dense fog. He left the car running, fell asleep, and died from carbon monoxide poisoning. As for the rest of the cemetery, many visitors have noticed the entire burial ground seems to be about ten degrees cooler than the surrounding area, and almost everyone reports feeling a sense of unease while on the grounds.
MISSISSIPPI
Chapel of the Cross Cemetery
Madison
At the time of his death in 1848, John T. Johnstone was making plans to build a church for his family on their Annan-dale plantation. His widow, Margaret, fulfilled his vision, constructing Chapel of the Cross, a redbrick Gothic Revival house of worship. In December 1855, during a visit to her elder sister’s estate, the Johnstones’ youngest daughter, Helen, met Henry Grey Vick, a descendant of the founder of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Helen and Henry fell madly in love. They were engaged in 1857, and the wedding date was set for May 21, 1859. A week
before the ceremony was to take place, Vick was in New Orleans when he ran into James Stith, a former friend. Words passed between them, and the argument escalated until Vick challenged Stith to a duel. Vick was struck in the head and died instantly. Ironically, his body was shipped north on the same riverboat carrying the caterers, cooks, and supplies for his wedding dinner at Annandale.
Vick was buried in the cemetery at Chapel of the Cross, his grave marked with a plain granite cross and statues of his favorite hunting dogs. Grief-stricken, Helen visited the cemetery every day, sitting on a bench from morning to night, crying for her lost love. This went on for weeks. She made her mother promise that the grave next to Vick’s would be left empty so that she could join him when she, too, passed. Knowing that time and distance would help her daughter heal, Helen’s mother took her on a months-long tour of Europe. Slowly, Helen emerged from her depression and years later married the Rev. George Harris. They moved to northern Mississippi, where Helen died in 1916. But her spirit didn’t stay there. Helen’s ghost, looking once again in the bloom of youth, began to appear next to the stone cross at Vick’s grave, kneeling and weeping. She still manifests today, but if the spectre is approached or realizes it’s being watched, it instantly disappears.
MISSOURI