Haunted Cemeteries

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Haunted Cemeteries Page 20

by Tom Ogden


  St. James Episcopal Churchyard

  Bristol

  The graveyard at St. James Episcopal Church is one of the oldest cemeteries in Bucks County. Some of the thousand or so interments date back to the early 1700s. When Merritt P. Wright was interred in 1911, his wife, Sarah, had a black iron chair placed beside her husband’s headstone so she had somewhere to sit when visiting the grave. Over the years the seat has gained the nickname “The Witch’s Chair.” The reason has nothing to do with the Wrights. Purportedly, one of the other people buried in the churchyard was a witch, and her spirit can be conjured up during the month of October. Those who are foolhardy enough to sit in the chair at exactly midnight will feel the invisible arms of the witch’s ghost wrap around them. Lastly, a woman named Gertrude Spring is buried in the graveyard, but her spirit haunts nearby Bordentown Road. Known as “Midnight Mary,” she shows up as a hitchhiking ghost wearing a soaking wet dress. Her spec-tre is sometimes seen walking on the water of Manor Lake instead. Legend has it that she drowned on her way home from the prom when the car she was riding in went out of control and ran into the lake.

  RHODE ISLAND

  Chestnut Hill Cemetery

  Exeter

  In December 1883 George Brown, a farmer in Exeter, Rhode Island, lost his thirty-six-year-old wife, Mary, to a mysterious wasting disease, at the time called the “White Death.” (Today we know it as tuberculosis.) The next spring, his eldest daughter, Mary Olive, contracted the same illness and passed away in June. Both were buried in the church cemetery. In 1891 George’s son, Edwin, fell sick with the same ailments, and friends urged him to move to Colorado Springs, where the climate and mineral springs seemed to help relieve the symptoms of other sufferers. In January of the following year, George’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Mercy Lena Brown, died of the same bizarre disorder. Edwin, who was not getting better, rushed home—only to discover that his father was convinced a vampire was preying on the family!

  The father persuaded a group of townsmen to help him exhume the bodies of his wife and daughters to find out whether his fears were true, and on March 18, 1892, they acted. Brown had also talked the district medical examiner into accompanying them to get an expert opinion. The doctor inspected the rotted corpses of Mary and Mary Olive and immediately declared that they showed the correct amount of decay for how long they had been in the ground. Because the earth had been frozen since Mercy’s death in January, however, her coffin had been temporarily placed in a small crypt on the cemetery grounds—although some versions of the tale say that Mercy, too, had been buried. In either case, her casket was opened, and her remains were checked by the medical examiner. After reporting that the body had the right amount of decomposition for the time and conditions during which she had been interred, the doctor left.

  The other men weren’t as satisfied. To their untrained eyes, Mercy’s corpse looked remarkably fresh. Plus, her body seemed to have shifted in the coffin. Was she leaving the crypt at night and returning to the tomb before the sun arose? Someone ripped open Mercy’s chest with a knife, removed her heart, and stabbed it—and it bled! Horrified, they immediately burned the heart on a stone wall in the cemetery. They then gathered up the ashes and mixed them into a tonic, which Edwin drank in the belief that it might somehow cure him. It didn’t, of course, and he succumbed two months later.

  But was George Brown’s seemingly insane obsession on target? Edwin was close to death when he returned from Colorado, so it’s doubtful any treatment would have helped. But once the “vampire” was taken care of, no more members of the Brown family died from the dreaded sickness.

  Mercy was buried in the family plot in the cemetery, despite the lingering rumors about her. She may not return as a vampire, but her ghost might be coming back! For many years now, visitors to the graveyard have been seeing an inexplicable blue light wafting through the burial ground. Paranormalists believe it’s the uneasy spirit of Mercy Brown, unable to find rest after the desecration of her body.

  SOUTH CAROLINA

  All Saints Church Cemetery

  Pawleys Island

  Back in 1849, young Alice Flagg was living with her stern older brother, Dr. Allard Flagg, in Hermitage, an estate in Murrells Inlet on Pawleys Island. The teenage girl became enamored of a young man who didn’t meet her brother’s approval. The beau secretly gave Alice a ring, which she immediately tied on a ribbon and hung around her neck. Perhaps to get her away from the influence of the unwanted suitor, Flagg sent his sister off to a boarding school in Charleston, but when Alice came down with “country fever” (most likely malaria), her brother, a physician, brought her home. While caring for her, Flagg discovered the ring and removed it. Alice begged for it back, but despite her being on her deathbed, the brother refused. He took the ring to a local swamp and threw it in. The girl soon died and, according to legend, was buried in All Saints Church Cemetery beneath a marble slab marked with the single word “Alice.” (Some less harsh versions of the story say that Dr. Flagg didn’t find the ring until after his sister’s death.)

  Supposedly Alice’s apparition is now seen looking for her ring at the Flagg family plot in the graveyard, back at Hermitage (now a private residence), and in the marshes along the Waccamaw River. She always wears white, and one of her hands is usually clutching her dress where the ring should be hanging. It’s said that you can summon Alice’s spirit by walking around her grave backwards thirteen times. In some versions of the old wives’ tale, you then must lie down on the stone to conjure her ghost. Some say the flowers and other remembrances regularly found on Alice’s grave are being placed there by the ethereal hands of her remorseful brother.

  What a great story! Unfortunately, many of the details don’t pan out, including the fact that Alice Flagg was interred at Belin Memorial Methodist Church, not All Saints Church Cemetery. The weathered slab bearing her name is most likely a cenotaph commemorating another family member, also named Alice, who was washed out to sea in a hurricane in 1893. Folklorist Genevieve Wilcox Chandler, who lived in Hermitage when she was a child, claims the whole thing was made up by her brother, Allston Moore Wilcox, to frighten their cousins when they visited from out of town in the 1940s. The ghost story first appeared in print in a 1946 book, Waccamaw Plantations, by Julian Stevenson Bolick, a friend of the Wilcox family.

  Or maybe the tale is true.

  Old Zion Cemetery

  Hilton Head Island

  In 1840 William Eddings Baynard, already a successful planter on Edisto Island, won the Stoney estate on Hilton Head from “Saucy Jack” Stoney in a poker game. He renamed the property Baynard Plantation, and he and his wife, Catherine, raised four children there. He died in 1849 from yellow fever at the age of forty-nine and was interred in an aboveground mausoleum in a cemetery at the nearby Zion Chapel of Ease. During the Civil War, the Baynards fled, and Union soldiers occupied the plantation. Thinking the family might have hidden some of their treasure in their crypt at Zion, the Yankees broke into the sepulcher and emptied it. Nothing of value was found; but in the process, Baynard’s body was lost. In 1867 the mansion went up in flames, perhaps torched by Confederate raiders; it was never rebuilt. Today, all that remains of the once-splendid plantation are the crumbling foundations of the main house and a few outbuildings. Most of the property has been developed into a tourist resort. But on many moonlit nights, William Baynard’s horse-drawn funeral cortege is seen traveling the road from the ruins of the old plantation to Highway 278 and then on to the family mausoleum in Old Zion Cemetery. Along the way, the spectral coach stops wherever a neighboring plantation once stood. Baynard’s ghost gets out, walks to the nonexistent gates, looks around, and then slowly returns to the carriage. It’s thought that Baynard is searching for his earthly remains so that they can be returned to the family crypt.

  St. Philip’s Episcopal Church Cemetery

  Charleston

  The current St. Philip’s Episcopal Church replaced a brick house of worship that was destroyed by
fire in 1835. The original church had almost gone up in flames once before that, in 1796, but it was saved by a black slave named Boney. When shingles on the steeple caught fire, Boney took it upon himself to climb the belfry to put out the blaze. He became a local hero, and his master rewarded Boney with his freedom. For the rest of his life, Boney spent many idle hours on the grounds of the church. And he’s never left. His shadowy spectre, a Man in Gray, is often spied resting against headstones in the church cemetery.

  The churchyard is also haunted by a female spirit thought to be Sue Howard Hardy, who died on June 10, 1888, six days after giving birth to a stillborn child. Her apparition is seen walking through the cemetery or crying at her baby’s grave. A photo taken by Harry Reynolds on June 10, 1987, appears to show a shawled translucent spectre, believed to be Hardy, kneeling at or bending over the infant’s burial site. Purportedly, many pregnant women and those who have had miscarriages get ill when visiting the graveyard or even after handling copies of the Reynolds photograph. Almost every ghost tour of Old Charleston tells the story of Sue Howard Hardy. For its part, the church has posted a sign in the graveyard stating: “The only ghost at St. Philip’s is the Holy Ghost,” followed by the times of worship.

  SOUTH DAKOTA

  IOOF Cemetery

  Gregory

  The Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery, with its 1,200 graves, dates to 1893. The burial ground hosts just one ghost: an elderly man who is either lost or searching for something. In either case, he disappears if anyone tries to approach him.

  Mountain View Cemetery

  Keystone

  Located close to Mount Rushmore, Mountain View Cemetery, also known as Keystone Cemetery, was founded in 1900 by the Modern Woodmen of America. Visitors to the graveyard have spotted the apparition of a little girl as well as a growling, black entity. Sometimes, even if ghosts don’t materialize, they’re captured on video. The phenomenon is similar to EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) in that those doing the recording don’t see the ghosts. The spirits only show up on playback. Most of the spectres appear on tape as disembodied faces or white figures hanging from the trees.

  TENNESSEE

  Confederate Cemetery

  Franklin

  A Confederate burial ground is located on the old Carnton plantation. Most if not all the 1,496 interments were Southern soldiers killed on November 30, 1864, in the Battle of Franklin. A ghost of one of the men now manifests to watch over the cemetery, and he trails visitors as they walk through. A set of twin brothers buried next to each other at one end of the graveyard don’t appear, but their invisible spirits like to grab people’s ankles as they pass. There’s also the spectre of a little girl, who drags her hand on the fence as she glides along. Sometimes people only hear her. It’s uncertain whether the youngster is buried in the cemetery.

  Fort Donelson National Cemetery

  Dover

  Fort Donelson National Cemetery has had about 1,700 interments. Although 670 of the graves belong to Union soldiers killed during the War Between the States, the names are known for just 158 of them. One of the infantrymen who has been identified is Reuben Hammond: We know who he is because his ghost told us! His phantom appears quite regularly, guarding over the graves of his fellow soldiers. When first spotted, he often seems melancholy and lost in thought, but if acknowledged, he’ll smile and tip his hat. He’ll even follow visitors and wave to them as they leave. Oddly, his name doesn’t appear on the cemetery register, but it’s on a list of soldiers at Surrender House, the site where Gen. Simon B. Buckner surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant after the 1862 Battle of Fort Donelson.

  Greenwood Cemetery

  Chattanooga

  Greenwood Cemetery has seen more than thirteen thousand burials, some of them dating as far back as 1876. Visitors sometimes catch a glimpse of the beautiful Lady in the Lake. Her sobriquet comes from the story of her demise. At some time in the unknown past, she and her husband lived next to the nearby lake, which was really a water-filled, abandoned quarry. Sadly, the woman developed polio and became wheelchair-bound. After years of tending to her needs, her husband pushed her into the quarry, wheelchair and all. Ever since, the woman’s spirit has been seen walking across the surface of the lake. She’s all in white and is once again polio-free. But she doesn’t stay at the lake. She sometimes comes to the cemetery, where she’ll float among the graves. But here’s the creepy part: If you follow her, you won’t find footprints—only the faint impression of wheelchair tracks.

  New Providence Presbyterian Cemetery

  Surgoinsville

  The burial ground at New Providence Presbyterian Church and Academy dates to the late 1700s. Among the 1,250 people interred there is Col. George Maxwell, who served in the Tennessee militia during the Revolutionary War. His grave is haunted, but not by the colonel. Instead, the spec-tre of a large black dog sits sentry on the mound. There’s no report of Maxwell owning the dog, so the reason for the ghostly animal’s presence is unknown. The dog doesn’t like company: The phantom vanishes if anyone spots it. Also, if people approach the grave, a flock of birds appears out of nowhere and flies off. Elsewhere in the cemetery, voices are heard and occasionally ghosts are seen under a large white oak. Legend has it that the spectres all belong to a single family that was murdered under the tree by bandit John Murrell, but there’s no historical record of the crime. The sound of disembodied footsteps shuffling through the leaves is also heard in the cemetery.

  St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Cemetery

  Cleveland

  The white marble mausoleum of the Craigmiles family sits out back of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. Streaks and splotches of crimson mar the exterior of the mausoleum, especially the inside of the portico, and legend has it that the marks are otherworldly. John Henderson Craigmiles was a wealthy merchant in 1864 when his wife, Adelia, gave birth to their first child, Nina. The little girl was killed in a tragic accident seven years later when the carriage she was riding in was hit by a train. In 1873 Craigmiles built the Episcopal Church in his daughter’s memory, then began work on the mausoleum. Soon after Nina’s remains were moved to the crypt, the blood-covered stains started to appear on the outside of the tomb. Not only that, the discoloration got darker and darker every time another family member was interred. Rumors began to surface that the marble itself was bleeding. Whatever their source, the dark red veins can still be seen, and nothing has been able to remove them.

  TEXAS

  Concordia Cemetery

  El Paso

  Established in 1856, Concordia Cemetery has somewhere between sixty thousand and sixty-five thousand graves. Its most storied occupant is John Wesley Hardin, an Old West gunfighter who spent fifteen years in prison for murder. (He’s said to have killed as many as thirty men.) After his release, Hardin became an attorney but was shot in the back in 1895, just months after he started his practice. The ghost of an anonymous Spanish woman is frequently spotted at his burial site, and it’s rumored that she’s the one who places the ever-present red flower on his grave. (Hardin may have been courting her at the time of his death.) Other hauntings in the cemetery include the sounds of horse hooves and youngsters laughing. The latter are heard in a section of the graveyard where many children are interred, victims of a smallpox epidemic.

  Old San Patricio Cemetery

  San Patricio

  Old San Patricio Cemetery, also known as Old Cemetery on the Hill, is located about twenty-four miles northwest of Corpus Christi. The site was probably used as a burial ground by Native Americans and Mexican settlers long before the nearby community of Villa de San Patricio de Hibernia was founded in 1830. Seldom used after 1872, when a new cemetery was established in town, the graveyard was neglected for many years until restoration began in the 1960s. For more than a century, the ghost of a headless cowboy riding a spectral horse has been seen in the hillside cemetery as well as on neighboring roads. Legend has it that he was a cattle rustler, and the posse that captured him cut off his
head because they couldn’t find a tree limb high enough to hang him.

  San Jose Burial Park

  Stinson Municipal Airport Cemetery

  San Antonio

  Two haunted cemeteries lie very close to each other in San Antonio. San Jose Burial Park was called Southside Cemetery when it opened in 1904. It received its current name in 1923 and is also now known as San Antonio City Cemetery #8. Ethereal blue lights hover over some of its graves, and they can even be seen from the street. Stinson Municipal Airport Cemetery, also called Stinson Field Cemetery, is located on property that’s now part of Stinson Municipal Airport. The site was probably in use as a graveyard from about 1920 to 1940 and may have been considered part of the San Jose Burial Park at one time. The graveyard at the airport consists of two sections, both located south of the runway. There’s an old wives’ tale that the cemetery is haunted by the ghost of a Chinese woman who is buried there. She committed suicide in the 1930s after being taunted for years because she was almost seven feet tall. Her apparition never strays too far from her grave.

  UTAH

  Ogden City Cemetery

  Ogden

  Established in 1851, Ogden City Cemetery is the oldest graveyard within the city limits, and it’s still in use today. People say that one night, many years ago, a woman named Florence was sitting on the curb outside the graveyard waiting for her ride. Unfortunately, a car speeding around the corner went out of control and ran into her, killing her instantly. According to urban legend, if anyone parks outside the cemetery these days and flashes the car’s headlights three times, Florence’s ghost will materialize on the road, looking for her lift.

  Spanish Fork City Cemetery

  Spanish Fork

  Although the thirty-acre Spanish Fork City Cemetery wasn’t officially established until 1868, burials on the grounds took place as early as 1853. A statue on a pedestal in the graveyard depicts a woman bent down on one knee, her left hand raised to her forehead in sorrow. The monument marks the grave of a woman said to have died from heartache after losing her only child. Visitors to the cemetery at night have reported hearing crying sounds coming from the statue, and it’s claimed that, upon close inspection, real tears can be seen streaming from the figure’s eyes. In broad daylight, striations on the granite face do look a great deal like dried tears, so maybe the statue does occasionally come to life to grieve.

 

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