HGB Ep. 443 - Haunted Cemeteries 23 and That Last Ride

Moment in Oddity - Eliza Huger Grave

The resting place of Eliza Huger can be found in the churchyard of the Old Stone Church on Highway 76 in Clemson, South Carolina. There are legends connected to this very odd burial, which features a stone wall built all around the stone slab that marks her plot. The only burial with this feature. The first legend claims that she was a witch who was asked to leave the Old Stone Church, although her husband was allowed to stay. When she died, the church didn't want to bury her in their churchyard, but they relented and buried her on the far side of the cemetery. They put a wall up around the grave to keep the witch inside. The wall crumbles on occasion and people claim that Eliza cursed the church and that is why the wall won't stand and the church had to rebuild it every few years. Today, rebar holds it up. Another legend claims that Eliza had been a lady-of-the-evening and her brother busted her with a client and shot and killed both of them. She was walled in to keep her loose morals away from the church. No one knows if either of these legends is true, but what is true is that the stone slab over the grave has multiple cracks on it and has had to be replaced multiple times because it continues to crack, either because of her spirit or because it has been hit by lightning many times, and that certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Activist Wobbly Joe Hill Convicted and Sentenced to Death

In the month of July, on the 18th, in 1914 labor activist Wobbly Joe Hill is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Hill had immigrated to the US from Sweden in 1879. He joined the International Workers of the World (IWW) in 1910. Members of this group were referred to as Wobblies and they held to beliefs that the capitalist system must be rejected. They helped fight against mistreatment of workers in the mining, logging and shipping industries. The ultimate goal, however, was to lead a workers revolution. Hill had a talent for writing songs and he was very witty, so he became the Wobblies' leading singer and songwriter. One of his songs introduced the notion of "pie in the sky." The IWW felt that music would help move their cause further and they published the Little Red Song Book. Joe Hill found himself gaining some fame, but it also put a target on his back. In 1914, grocery store owner and former policeman John G. Morrison and his son were shot and killed by two men during a robbery of their store. Hill was arrested for the crime and even though the evidence against him was very thin, the jury convicted him and he was sentenced to death. Apparently, Hill had shown up at a hospital night of the murders with a gunshot wound. He explained that he had been shot during a jealous altercation over a woman, but would offer no other details. Despite appeals and high-profile calls for leniency, he was executed by firing squad the following year. A biography written about him in 2011 details a letter that was found decades later that indicated the story Hill had told about how he was shot, was true. 

Haunted Cemeteries 23 

Cemeteries are the final resting place for many people. However that final spot is decorated is a matter of money and preference. All burial plots are important whether that patch is adorned with a simple flat plaque or an audacious mausoleum. We have found that many of these "cities of the dead" are haunted. In this episode, we cover cemeteries located in Pennsylvania, Maine, Australia, Indiana, Tennessee and Michigan. And then there is that little detail of how one arrives to that final resting place. A hearse usually gets the job done. Cheers to that final ride! 

The Hooded Grave Cemetery (Suggested by: Beth VanderYacht)

The rural cemetery movement began in the 1830s and for America, many of these garden-like places became the first public parks. These were wonderful spots for families to gather together, both the living and the dead. Cemeteries also bring together culture and history. Sometimes these elements are revealed in the symbols that adorn headstones and other times it may be seen in the implements that accompany graves. Mt. Zion Cemetery at 277 Longwoods Road in Catawissa, Pennsylvania is also known as the Hooded Grave Cemetery. The cemetery has that odd nickname due to a couple of these strange apparatuses found on graves there. This isn't a haunted cemetery, but when listener and Executive Producer Beth VanderYacht brought it to our attention, we were intrigued. The nickname references the hoods or cages found over a couple of the graves in this small cemetery.

We've discussed mortsafes on episodes before. These are those metal cages that are found over graves dating back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that are believed to have been used to prevent grave robbing. These cages usually only rose about two feet above the ground. What makes the hoods or cages in the Hooded Cemetery unique is the fact that they rise over four feet high. They stretch the length of the plot and measure three feet wide. The hoods are found on two of the graves. One belongs to Asenath Thomas, wife of John F. Thomas, who died on June 26, 1852, possibly from complications during childbirth. The other grave belongs to Sarah Ann Boone, wife of Ransloe Boone and sister to the aforementioned John Thomas. She died a few days before her sister-in-law Asenath on June 18, 1852. An article in Medium by Annabelle Wagner claims that there had been a third cage in the cemetery until the 1930s when it was removed because it was falling apart. It was believed to be over a grave of another woman, Sarah's cousin Rebecca Clayton, who died in the same year. 

As to why these two cages are in this cemetery is anybody's guess. Some people wondered if the affluent Thomas family was showing off their wealth, but why wouldn't all the family members have similar structures on their graves? Could these be bigger mortsafes? That is possible, but this is a small graveyard, not one near a city where dead bodies would be needed for dissecting at medical schools. The cages are made from malleable wrought iron as well, so not real protective against saws or other tools. And the really odd thing is the fact that mortsafes are not found in America and these two are the only of their kind in the United States. Wagner puts forward the idea that maybe there was a fear of vampirism. All three deaths in 1852 from an unknown cause lends credence to that theory. But maybe the most likely theory is to prevent people from standing on the grave and causing a grave collapse as the ground here would have had that issue.

Old York Cemetery in Maine

Old York Cemetery is also known as Old Parish Cemetery. It is found in York Village, Maine, across the street from First Parish Church. There are eleven noteworthy burials here that were recently showcased in 2020 by Boy Scout Tyson Matthews who coordinated the research and installation of a large panel featuring the information. There is a monument to the victims of York's Candlemas Massacre of 1692. The oldest grave dates back to 1705 and belongs to an infant named Lucy who died during child birth. The most interesting grave here belongs to Mary Nasson who died on August 18, 1774. Her image is carved on the crown of the gravestone. It's an odd image. For those of you who have seen Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film "Bram Stoker's Dracula," there is a scene of an aged Dracula and he has these two buns on his head. That hair-do is how I would describe Mary's hair on her carving. On top of that, her eyes are bugged out, her lips are pouty and she is wearing a loose robe. But that's not what makes this burial interesting. Legend claims that this is the grave of the York Witch. A stone slab sits atop the burial and there is a claim that this was meant to keep the witch in her grave. She was said to be a white witch who helped neighbors with herbs and exorcised demons. Mary haunts the graveyard with people seeing her full-bodied apparition. She occasionally crosses the street and pushes children on the swings in the playground.

Ballarat Old Cemetery (Suggested by: Alex Ryding)

The Ballarat Old Cemetery is found in the Victoria, Australia city of Ballarat. This had been the land of the Wathawurrung Aboriginal People who were displaced as our Native Americans were. This third largest city in Victoria had auspicious beginnings with discovery of gold here in 1851. This sparked the Victorian Gold Rush and Ballarat became a boom town. In 1854, fights over gold licenses caused an armed uprising known as the Eureka Rebellion. Gold miners were becoming disgruntled with the colonial government and were demonstrating in increasing violent ways. The Eureka Flag was the southern cross flag and 10,000 demonstrators swore their allegiance to this flag at Bakery Hill on November 29, 1854 under the leadership of Irishman Peter Lalor. The oath they took was, "We swear by the Southern Cross, to stand truly by each other, and fight to defend our rights and liberties." This flag was flown over the Eureka Stockade, which the miners had built near the Eureka diggings, and remains a national symbol today. Government troops attacked the stockade on December 3, 1854, killing 22 miners, one of whom was a woman. Six soldiers were killed in the assault that lasted a mere 15 minutes. The rebellion led to Australian democracy and men were given the right to vote in 1857. The city remained a boom town well into the late 19th century. 

In 1854, the old cemetery was established with the first burial in May of 1856. The cemetery stretches over 17 acres with 35,000 interments. The grounds are beautiful with several garden areas: Conifer Gardens, Highview Gardens, Sunset Gardens, Birdsong Gardens, The Terraces and Tanika Lawn. There is a beautiful rotunda in the center of the cemetery dating to 1893 that has been restored. A gatehouse was added in 1920 and that has also been restored. There are burial areas for all different denominations of Christianity, Buddhists, Jews and there is a nursery for babies and children's corner for kids up to the age of 12 years. A Tree of Memories is a memorial sculpted from bronze featuring a tree with engraved leaves featuring inscriptions for babies lost prior to reaching one year and miscarriages, stillbirths and neonatal deaths. A Pioneer's Block is dedicated to the earliest settlers to the area. A Eureka Monument was built for those who died during the Eureka Rebellion. Many of those who died were buried in a mass grave, but were disinterred later to the memorial, which has a grey sandstone obelisk with a draped urn atop it, standing over the burial area. There is also a mass grave for over 10,000 gold miners. Many early burials were from Dysentery that swept through the diggings

A little known fact about Ballarat is that it became a mecca for spiritualism in the Victorian era. During the Gold Rush, there was this influx of spiritualists bringing their beliefs, but there were also Chinese immigrants coming who brought their beliefs and traditions around ghosts. Many of the residents thought that the hauntings happening in the town were due to the fact that the Chinese immigrants were unable to get proper burials. Thus, a special area at Ballarat Old Cemetery was set aside for them. Walter Craig was buried in the cemetery in 1870. He built the Royal Hotel in the 1850s. He owned a horse named Nimblefoot that was going to race in the 1870 Melbourne Cup. He told friends he’d dreamt that his horse Nimblefoot was going to win. There was something weird about the dream though. The jockey riding his horse wore a black armband. Craig's horse did win the race, but everyone soon found out what the black armband had meant in the dream. The jockey wore it because Craig did shortly before the race. As an aside, Craig's spirit is said to haunt his hotel and is seen wearing Victorian clothing. Ghost stories are hard to come by even though several ghost tour companies host tours through the cemetery. There are shadow figures seen at night in the cemetery as are floating orbs.

Springdale Cemetery in Indiana

Springdale Cemetery was founded in 1839 in Madison, Indiana. This is the oldest cemetery in the city and was established to take the place of the first Old City Cemetery that was built close to a creek and regularly flooded, raising the dead. With the risk of flooding on the mind of those who designed the cemetery, stone-lined drainage ditches were built along the cemetery. The design was heavily influenced by cemeteries in Europe. A Gothic Revival chapel with stained-glass windows designed by architect Frederick Wallick was built in 1917. The first burial here was for fifteen-year-old Frances "Fanny" Sullivan who died in October 1839. She belonged to the large Sullivan family. Her father Judge Jeremiah Sullivan sat on the Indiana Supreme Court. The Sullivan plot has both of Fanny's parents and eight of her siblings. The Sullivan family home still stands as a museum and is said to be haunted. The Old Public Grounds section here is the final resting spot for many burials brought over from the Third Street Cemetery, which had been the original cemetery that flooded. That former cemetery is a park now that is haunted with stories of cold spots and floating orbs probably because the bodies were moved. This also has lead to hauntings in the Springdale Cemetery because matching up of headstones with bodies wasn't complete and some bodies were completely washed away in floods.

Civil War veterans are buried here. One of them died during the Battle of Antietam and another was also a veteran of the Mexican-American War. Hanging Rock Hill is near the back of the cemetery and is home to a large Italian marble sculpture created by George Gray Barnard for his family plot. He made it in 1922 and it features a woman raising her outstretched arms to the sky. There is ghostly activity associated with this statue. People have claimed to see tears of blood flowing from the woman's eyes. Legends that fuel dares for young people claim that if you trespass into the cemetery at night and kiss the feet of the statue, she will come to life and chase you from the cemetery. Cold spots are felt throughout the cemetery and balls of light have been seen. And a strange spirit has been seen multiple times with only the torso and legs visible. The arms and head seem to be missing or just don't materialize. One of the causes for the hauntings could be a flood that hit the cemetery in 1978. Some coffins were washed away and finding their proper burial spot was impossible, so there may be bodies that don't match headstones.

Shelby County Cemetery in Memphis

The Shelby County Cemetery is located at 8340 Ellis Road in Memphis, Tennessee. This started as a potter's field before the county acquired the property in 1891 and added more acreage, bringing it to sixty acres. The name of the cemetery officially became Shelby County Cemetery in 1934. The cemetery moved to a new spot in 1965, but many bodies weren't transferred before the Ed Rice Community Center and Frayser Park were built over it. The new cemetery is said to be haunted because bodies weren't transferred. Memphis Paranormal Investigations have investigated here many times and they have named one of the spirits they have interacted with "The Cucumber Man" because the scent of cucumbers accompanies his manifestations. He seems to be quite fond of women and likes to touch them. 

Mouth Cemetery in Michigan

Mouth Cemetery is located in White River Township in Michigan, which is an area known for strange occurrences. White River Township is at the mouth of a river, so settlers nicknamed it "Mouth," which is where the name of the cemetery comes from. Native Americans had lived here and were involved in a massacre between warring tribes in the 1600s. Early settlers founded the settlement as a lumber town. And the first burial in the cemetery took place in 1830. The first marked date on a headstone though is 1851 and this is for Christian Merke. Native Americans, shipwrecked sailors, Revolutionary War soldiers, children and early settlers are buried here. The cemetery is really overgrown and fallen into a bit of disrepair and is thought to have 300 burials on three acres. The most famous burial belongs to a lighthouse keeper named Captain William Robinson who was buried here in 1919. He was the first lightkeeper at the White River Light Station, which was built in 1875. He served here for forty-seven years and only stopped working there when he was forced to because of his age. He oversaw the building and was there so long, it isn't surprising that he is said to haunt the lighthouse. But he also haunts his final resting place, which is near the lighthouse.

A weird legend connected to the cemetery is about a chair that once sat at the cemetery. A young man sat in it and people thought it cursed him because he died in a car accident exactly one year later. People would dare each other to sit in the chair until it was removed. Disembodied footsteps are heard and strange mists are seen. Disembodied cries and screams are also heard, which might be connected to the massacre. The spirit of a young girl wearing a white period dress is also seen. A girl named Jennifer visited the cemetery and she told Amberrose Hammond, the author of "Ghosts and Legends of Michigan's West Coast," that she was standing outside the cemetery and saw an orange-colored ball of light form in the trees. It hovered above the cemetery and then disappeared. Jennifer had called her friends over and they said it was probably nothing, then at that moment the light appeared again in the trees and hovered for a bit before vanishing. The light appeared a third time and disappeared. All the people in Jennifer's group witnessed the ball appearing at least once.

Hearses

When we come to the end of our lives, we are all pretty similar in that we want to go out in style. Whether we choose a casket or to be cremated, the vehicle that gets us there should be special. One thing hearses have always done, is drawn our attention to the procession. No one can watch a funeral procession drive by without contemplating the end of life. One day, we will all be there. Taking that final ride to our final resting place. If you could choose anything to be your last ride, what would it be? Pink Cadillac? Alfa Romeo - I know, a bit cramped, but talk about going out in style. A stretch limo perhaps? Strapped on a motorcycle? That sounds a bit outlandish, but I know about a guy who was buried that way. Billy Standley of Ohio was buried in 2014 on his beloved 1967 Electra Glide Harley-Davidson inside a Plexiglas casket. A metal back brace and straps were used to ensure that his body stays on that motorcycle through all time...well, okay, until his bones fall apart. His final ride was in a trailer in a procession to the cemetery with all of his biker buddies watching.

While many of us refer to the vehicles used to transport coffins to their final destination as hearses, the funeral industry refers to them as funeral coaches. The word "hearse" comes from the Middle English "herse." This herse was a candelabra of sorts usually placed on top of a coffin or the back of a coffin and a fun fact is that the reason funeral processions went slow was to prevent the candles from blowing out. The candelabras upside-down looked like the tool used to make harrows in the ground and herse was the term for harrow. Now if you expect me to tell you how a candelabra term eventually became what people called the horse-drawn carriages that carried the casket to the graveyard during a funeral procession, I'm going to disappoint you. Because I don't know. But for some reason, this reference started in the 17th century.

So you must be thinking, and if you weren't I'm going to tell you anyway, what was going on in the way of final rides before these first horse-drawn hearses? Carts with a flat frame were used and they were called biers. Many were as basic as a flat board on which a body would be placed, covered with a shroud and dragged to the graveyard. We actually do still see biers today during funeral processions for important political figures like presidents. Biers are also used when caskets are placed lying in state. The modern funeral industry calls their biers, "church trucks" and they are usually made from aluminum and collapsible with wheels. These fairly boring and simple modes of body transportation gave way to much fancier ones with the introduction of carriages.

Antique hearse carriages are gorgeous and we love them. Some can be very elaborate with carved wood that features birds like doves, flowers, angels and scrollwork. There was a magazine for funeral directors called "The Casket" back in 1909. One of the hearses featured inside had large angels on either side of the display glass windows. And those windows were a traditional feature of the carriage hearses, along with draping. The glass came as either straight glass or cathedral glass in design. The cathedral glass is shaped like pointed church windows and can have elaborate designs as well. Another common feature were lamps on either side of the carriages, generally up front where a driver might be seated as he drives the horses. And that was something added to these carriages that biers usually did not have: horses. Horses were used to pull the carriages as now heavy caskets were being used for burial.

We found this interesting article in The Morning Call back in 2001 that indicates that horse-drawn hearse carriages are still an option today. Joe Tetz owned the Tetz Coach and Hearse Company and he discovered in 1996 that people were still interested in horse-led funeral processions. He drove a wagon for the 1996 reburial of three Revolutionary War soldiers and people went crazy about it. So he thought it would be a good idea to gear his business towards that idea. In 1998, Tetz invited Robert B. Heintzelman, co-owner of Heintzelman Funeral Homes, to come see his funeral wagons and Heintzelman was so impressed, he commissioned Tetz to build a horse-drawn hearse for one their funeral homes. Heintzelman considers the wagon a "treasured masterpiece" and the funeral home had hosted several horse-drawn hearse funerals for Heintzelman customers.

So it seems that this kind of last ride could still be a viable option for some of you out there. We had not realized this was still a thing until researching this and now, well...we certainly would love this to be our last ride. Hearses remained horse-drawn until the first decade of the 20th century. As early as 1900, electric powered hearses were used. Yes, you heard that right. Electric hearses were a thing in the early 1900s. The gas-powered hearses came along in 1909 and the first was designed by undertaker H.D. Ludlow. He commissioned the building of a vehicle made from the body of a horse-drawn hearse and the chassis of a bus. This was used at the funeral of  Wilfrid A. Pruyn and became quite popular. At least with people other than funeral directors who found the vehicles to be too expensive. And for the time, they were running around $6,000 per hearse. By the 1920s though, the gas-powered hearses were the norm and directors found that the speed would increase the number of funerals they could host. And there was no danger of blowing out candles at this point, so why not!

The Crane and Breed Company of Cincinnati, Ohio became the first manufacturer of hearses. This company has a long history in the business of death. A claim to fame for them is that President Abraham Lincoln was interred in a Crane patent metal coffin. The hearses they built could hit speeds of 30 mph. These early hearses resembled the horse-drawn carriages with their box-like designs. Packard made a funeral bus in 1916 that was large enough to fit the casket, pallbearers and 20 mourners. The 1919 Reo Funeral Coach resembles the horse-drawn carriages of old minus the horses. There are the lamps on the side and large, interior draped windows on the side. Sayers and Scovill introduced the sleeker, limousine style in the 1930s. Many of these had a landau style to them meaning a simulated convertible. The landaus were the parts of the hearse coaches that braced the folding leather tops of the horse-drawn carriages. Those simulated landau joints are seen on the sides of modern day hearses. So they are not just a random decoration. They have a historical reference.

Some cities, like Chicago, had rail cars that were specifically used for transporting caskets. A special bureau operated these trolley cars, three to four days a week on the "L." Baltimore also had funeral trolleys for a time. Remote cemeteries in Australia and London made use of funeral trains as well. Today, most hearses fall into two categories. The first has narrow pillars and large windows on the side through which the coffin can be seen. The other is the more commonly seen one with opaque rear panels and a small window in back, so the coffin can barely be seen. These are the kind mentioned earlier with the mock landau bars and the roofs tend to be vinyl. Most are manufactured by Cadillac, which started making hearses in 1916, or Lincoln. *Fun fact: Until the 1970s, hearses were also used as ambulances since they had the bigger open rear bodies. The most popular Cadillac Commercial Chassis combo ambulance/hearse would be Ecto-1 from the Ghostbusters movie. That was a 1959 Miller Meteor model.*

This is mostly the case for America. In Europe, cars built by Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar are modified by coachbuilders. And some Japanese hearses get elaborate enough that they build mini Buddhist temples on the back. These Japanese-style hearses vary based on the region where they are used. The Kanazawa style has a red body with gilded ornaments. Some are black, but red is more common. The Nagoya style is decorated on both the upper and lower halves of the car body. The Kansai style is modest and unpainted. The Tokyo style features painted/gilded ornaments on the upper half of the body. Chinese hearses in Hong Kong and Singapore are generally glorified vans. But when it comes right down to it, you probably could choose just about anything as your final ride. 

So are these various cemeteries haunted? That is for you to decide!