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!

Ep. 389 - Haunted Cemeteries 19

Our sponsor for this episode is HelloFresh. Go to https://HelloFresh.com/BUMP12 and enter code BUMP12 for 12 free meals and free shipping!

Moment in Oddity - Outlaw Robert Clay Allison Killed in Freak Accident

Robert Clay Allison is buried at West of Pecos Museum, which is also known as the Robert Clay Allison Burial Site. He was an American Western Frontier Outlaw who had a real penchant for shooting people. He once remarked, "I never killed a man that did not need killing." Needless to say, he had some personality problems and was quickly discharged from the Confederate Army shortly after joining up during the Civil War for that reason. He went on to be a trail boss and met up with a desperado who had a grudge against him named "Chunk" Colbert. The two men spent a day carousing and drinking, but things went south at dinner when Colbert reached for Allison's gun. Allison quickly shot Colbert. He was asked by someone why he would sit down to dinner with a man who had a grudge against him and he said, "I didn't want to send him to hell on an empty stomach." Allison was at Cimarron's St. James Hotel in 1875 when he got in a gunfight and killed Francisco "Pancho" Griego. He and his brother John were drinking and gambling at a saloon in Las Animas, Colorado when Constable Charles Faber came along with a shotgun. The Constable wounded John before Allison killed him. Then he changed his ways. In 1880, he moved to a ranch, married and had two daughters. One would expect that an outlaw would die in a blaze of glory, but Allison died in a freak accident. He was going for supplies and a grain sack started sliding from the wagon. As he reached for the sack, he fell from the wagon and the wheel ran over his neck, killing him and that, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Frances Pizarro Comes To A Bloody End

In the month of June, on the 26th, in 1541, Frances Pizarro meets a bloody end. Pizarro had been a Spanish conquistador and he conquered modern-day Peru and brought down the Incas. He had a rival conquistador who challenged him when he was governor of New Castile that would become Peru. He had that conquistador executed. That man's son wanted revenge and he would have it. His name was Diego de Almagro. Pizarro was eating dinner at his palace in Lima when Diego and several of his men busted in. Pizarro grabbed a sword from the wall and defended himself successfully against three men before Almagro’s men stabbed him in the throat. Before he died, Pizarro shouted, “Jesus!” and drew a cross on the ground with his own blood and then he kissed it. He had been one of the most ruthless conquistadors. He was buried in Lima Cathedral. In 1977, his burial box was opened and forensic scientists found that the skull was broken by numerous violent blows, so apparently he got more than just stabbed, which seemed fitting for such a violent man.

Haunted Cemeteries 19

We all love cemeteries around here. These are places of beauty and memorial, even the ones that have become overgrown and neglected. Headstones contain valuable information that can reveal the ethnicity, the demography or even the epidemiology of an area. Also, the feelings that people had at certain times or in certain places about religion and death. On this episode, we are not only going to talk about several haunted cemeteries: Cemetery Memorial Park in California, Oakland and Greenwood Cemeteries in Florida, Rosehill Cemetery in California and Mound City and Springdale Cemeteries in Illinois, but also some of the difficult issues with cemeteries: desecration and the burial of blacks. These kinds of issues can lead to unrest. Join us for Haunted Cemeteries 19!

Cemetery Memorial Park (Suggested by: Leo)

Brandon Alvis is one of the paranormal investigators on the new version of the Ghost Hunters. He released a documentary on Cemetery Memorial Park in Ventura, California in 2019, which was shown at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Check out the trailer on his website: https://www.brandonjalvis.com/ We have talked about the desecration of cemeteries many times on this podcast and specifically how that can lead to hauntings. The story here is horrible. Beneath this park are buried hundreds of bodies. They were never moved. Their headstones and memorials were lifted off of plots and dumped into a canyon in 1964. This had been St. Mary's Cemetery and one man's dedication for fourteen years, brought to light the desecration propagated by the city council. 

On October 3, 1862, a parcel of land measuring 3.69 acres was purchased from George S. Wright, Henry Webb, Edmund L. Gould and Daniel Waterman. This was then deeded to the Right Reverend Thaddeus Amat, Bishop of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, "for the use and purpose of a Catholic Burying Ground" at San Buenaventura. In 1889, the city took over control of the non-Catholic portion of the cemetery. Internments stopped in May of 1944. In August of 1949, the Planning Commission recommended razing the tombstones and building houses on the property. The plan was rejected. The next plan would come in 1963 with Ventura City Manager Charles Reiman getting the go-ahead from the City Council to build a memorial park. Curbs, slabs, vaults, headstones and bases were to be removed. It was suggested that small brass markers be set flush with the ground to mark the burials. We're not completely sure what happened, but the cemetery was demolished. Some families collected slabs, other slabs were used in construction, added to abstract art sculptures and ground into fill. Headstones were removed by the end of summer in 1966 with the entire project ending in 1969. The push to restore the cemetery continues today.

The people buried here were Native American, ranchers, cowboys, pioneers and veterans. Some of those veterans were war heroes, even recieving the Medal of Honor. Now they lie below the dirt, unidentified, where dogs defecate and urinate and the homeless and others leave their trash. The Ayala Family was buried here. Rita Davis Ayala was a pioneer of the city. Her husband José Ramón de los Santos Ayala was a veteran of the Civil War, enlisting with the California Volunteers and he had an honored place in the ranks of the Grand Army of the Republic. Their son Alphonso preceded them in death at the age of 27. Many of the buried here served with Company C, 1st Battalion Native Cavalry. Members of the Hobson Family were buried here. They had a successful cattle business, Hobson Brothers Packing Company, and many butcher shops in downtown Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. One of the brothers, Abram, was considered a consummate horseman in the Vaquero tradition. In 1893, William Vandever was buried here. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and became a United States Representative from California and Iowa. There was James Sumner who was buried here in 1912. He had been a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the Medal of Honor. In 1990, the American Legion Post 339 placed markers over the graves of Private James Sumner and Brevet Major General William Vandever.

There had been 3800 people buried here and many of them still remain with only a few of the final resting places marked, which may be why there are rumors of ghosts here. These include headless figures and pirate ghosts. A local legend is connected to a young man who unfortunately hanged himself from a tree in the park and people claim to sometimes see his ghostly body swinging from the tree on foggy nights. People who live near the park claim to see apparitions in the street as though they are wandering around looking for their graves or tombstones or something.

Oakland and Greenwood Cemeteries in Tallahassee

The historic Oakland Cemetery is located near the corner of Brevard and North Bronough Streets in Tallahassee, Florida at 838 N. Bronough Street. This cemetery was established in 1902 and at the time, blacks and whites were buried in separate sections. It took on the name "the old cemetery," even though there was an Old City Cemetery. In 1936, another cemetery was established in the city, solely for the burial of people of color, and that would be Evergreen Cemetery. Commissioners voted that any remaining plots set aside for blacks at Oakland would be taken back by the city and resold. There was a big problem though. The black citizens were having none of this because of the land upon which Evergreen was supposed to be founded. This was, of course, the undesirable, low-lying ground in town. Completely unsuitable for burial. 

The Tallahassee Daily Democrat wrote, "The vexing problem of burial lots for negroes and cemetery regulations, including titles to cemetery lots, is before the city commission again... the commission directed its attorney, James Messer, Jr., to draft an ordinance for early adoption that will regulate the depth of all graves to be dug in the four cemeteries inside the corporate limits. Officials admitted the new law will have a definite bearing on further use by negroes of one of their burial grounds in the city. Recently a new negro cemetery was opened, but members of that race have vigorously protested and so far are said to be almost unanimously opposed to its use as a burial ground." Despite these objections, the commission voted in February of 1937 to close the cemetery to blacks. 

J.R.D. Laster was a well-known black undertaker in town and his name comes up over and over as he fought against the commission. He organized the black community and they founded the Greenwood Cemetery Company so they could buy their own land for burial. Evergreen Cemetery would never come to fruition. The company purchased ten acres of land, in an area lying East of Old Bainbridge Road. The land was purchased from Erma L. Jenkins, who was one of the company's founders. They paid $10 and Greenwood Cemetery was officially established in 1937. Burials began soon after that and the cemetery is today 12.4 acres. Unfortunately through the years, neglect took over the cemetery as families passed or left the city. The understanding was that families would care for their plots. Once all the founding members died, only the undertaker's daughter was left to care for the cemetery. In 1985, clean-up efforts began as the city took over restoration of the deteriorated cemetery. Greenwood Cemetery was officially re-dedicated in October of 1987.

Greenwood Cemetery's grave markers reveal the social structure of Tallahassee's black community over a fifty-year period. There are simple markers, there are big commercially designed stones and there are homemade markers. What makes this graveyard unique among the Tallahassee cemeteries are the Afro-American folk art and traditions infused here. Many of these traditions come from West and Central Africa. Concrete headstones have decorative pieces of mirror and tile applied to them and this is said to represent water. This reminds us of the thought that a person is crossing a river to get to the afterlife. Crosses are fashioned from metal and wood. Some headstones have been painted silver. And there are plots decorated with items that belonged to the deceased like cups and saucers or bowls. This reminds us of the Latino cemetery we stumbled upon one day that was full of items decorating most of the plots from flowers to religious icons to personal items.

We were unable to find any haunts at Greenwood Cemetery, but Oakland Cemetery has a story. Inside Oakland Cemetery, one will find the onion-domed, lichen covered and crumbling Phillips Mausoleum at Block 18, Lot 12. This was built by and for architect Calvin C. Phillips who designed structures for the Paris Expo in 1877 and the Old Clock Tower in the All Saints Neighborhood in Tallahassee. The mausoleum was built in the early 20th century and displayed the eccentricities of the man who chose a mixture of Greek, Indian, Doric and Roman styles. There's not much known about Phillips. He was born in Massachusetts in the early 1830s and moved to Tallahassee alone in 1907, even though he was married and had two daughters. He lived as a hermit there and was obsessed with time, which is why he built the Old Clock Tower. He was obsessed with his final burial spot as well. He spent days and days for years building the crypt and just sitting inside of it. When asked about it he said he was getting used to it. At the time he was in his 80s and not far from his death. The mausoleum was finished in November 1919 and he died only a few days later.

This led to a legend starting about his death that claimed he hired a carpenter to build him a coffin out of cherry wood. When Phillips got the casket, he had it delivered to the mausoleum and then shut himself inside of it where he died. People claim that is why his spirit is at unrest. But it could be for another reason since this scenario more than likely did not play out. In 2000, vandals broke into the crypt and stole the skull of Phillips. It has never been recovered. And perhaps that is why people claim to see Phillips’ ghost sitting on top of the mausoleum. His apparition has also been spotted walking around the cemetery.

Rose Hill Historical Cemetery at Black Diamond Mines

Rose Hill Cemetery is a Welsh Protestant cemetery that is found on the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve. This area was the Mount Diablo Coalfield in what was Nortonville and Somersville, California. A low grade of coal was dug out of the mines here from 1850 until the turn-of-the-century. As the coal dried up, the towns started to slump economically, but they got a boost in 1920 when silica sand started to be mined out of the Hazel-Atlas Mine. This was used in glass-making. This mining had a good run until the 1940s and all of the mines were shut down for good. The people living in Somersville left the town, taking their homes with them. You heard that right. They literally took their homes down, board by board and took them to a new town to reassemble.

They did leave behind their dead at the Rose Hill Cemetery, which is surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence. This was named for Emma Rose, who was the daughter of the man who bought the land from the mining company. Graves here date from 1865 to 1954. Many people died in the towns around the mines from a variety of things like mining accidents and black lung to epidemics of diphtheria, typhus, scarlet fever and small pox. The cemetery looks really nice today, but before this became a preserve, the graveyard was desecrated with headstones being broken or knocked off their bases. Supervising Naturalist Traci Parent put together a team and they painstakingly put the headstones back together and did their best to figure out where people were buried, even though early records had been destroyed. They even managed to get 12 headstones that had been taken, returned to the cemetery.

The desecration of the cemetery seems to have led to some hauntings. The experiences got so intense that it is said that 119 exorcisms had to be performed. One of the creepier hauntings describes thirteen ghosts of children all dressed in black wandering the graveyard. Perhaps victims of an epidemic in their burial clothes. There are also floating, glowing crosses seen in the cemetery. A ghost that glows white has been seen gliding over the headstones and the sounds of a horse drawn carriage have been heard on the cemetery road. Other sounds that are heard include, ghostly cries and laughter, bells jingling and wind when there is no actual wind.

The most well known ghost here is Sarah Norton. Nortonville is named for her family. Her husband Noah Norton had founded the town, but he died in a mining accident. She had lost her religion along the way and was a very opinionated and strong woman. She worked as a midwife and had delivered many babies in the mining community. She was traveling in a buggy to deliver another of those babies on October 5th, 1879, when she was thrown from the buggy and killed. She was not given a proper Christian burial because two storms erupted each time they attempted to have the funeral. And she's a tad angry about that. She appears in the graveyard as a "gliding lady" or a "glowing Lady" and she has been nicknamed the White Witch because she is a malevolent entity that scares people who see her.

Mound City National Cemetery

President Abraham Lincoln authorized the creation of twelve national cemeteries on July 17, 1862 and one of those was Mound City National Cemetery in Mound City, Illinois. This city had large naval shipyards that provided warships to the Union's Mississippi Squadron during the Civil War, which was comprised of 80 vessels. The USS Cairo, USS Cincinnati, and USS Mound City were some of their famous ironclads that they produced. There was a nearby military hospital and the first burials would be men who succumbed to their injuries and illness. The hospital could care for up to 1500 men and the first arrivals were from the Battle of Belmont in Kentucky, followed by a campaign at Fort Donelson. There would also be causalities from the Battle of Shiloh. Starting in 1864, bodies were re-interred from local battlefield cemeteries. The 10 acres are the final resting place for around 8500 people from all of the wars and burials still continue today for service veterans. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There is one Civil War Brigadier General buried here, John Basil Turchin. There is also a beautiful marble monument that was erected in 1874 for the Illinois State Soldiers and Sailors Monument, a tribute to the unknown fallen during the Civil War.  

There is one spirit here and it belongs to a woman. Many believe that this apparition is the wife of Brigadier General Turchin, Madame Turchin. Turchin was Russian born and known as the Mad Cossack because of his service in the army of the Russian Czar. He loved his wife and hated to be away from her, so he actually brought her to the battlefields with him. She witnessed his charge that saved the day at the Battle of Chickamauga. She wrote the only woman's war diary of the military campaigns Turchin was involved with. We imagine her account was rose-colored because her husband was later court-martialed for not controlling his men and allowing them to burn and pillage towns. After his death in 1901, she visited his grave at Mound City often and that is what her ghost continues to do today.

Springdale Cemetery in Illinois

Springdale Cemetery is located in Peoria, Illinois. Peoria was established in 1691, making it the oldest European settlement in Illinois. The city was named for the Peoria tribe from the area. Springdale Cemetery started as a private cemetery and was founded in 1854 although the first internment didn't happen until 1857. The cemetery was platted over 360 acres of rolling hills, but was later trimmed back to 223 acres. There are over 78,000 people buried here and there are 15 private mausoleums and one large public mausoleum. 

There are several notable burials here that include 900 military veterans, with one special area designated as Soldiers' Hill. Lucie Brotherson Tyng was the founder of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and she has a plot here. There is also the founder of the Bradley Polytechnic Institute, which became Bradley University, Lydia Moss Bradley. American artist Hedley Waycott is here. He was Peoria's best loved painter and was self-taught. A newspaper writer commented of him, "Waycott was gratified to believe that he played a large part in helping many people learn to appreciate the vast beauties of nature and have a deeper longing for the finer things of life." Former Illinois Governor Thomas Ford has his final resting place here. And the father of American aviation, Octave Chanute is buried at Springdale. He was a mentor for Orville and Wilbur Wright and was a pioneer in wood preservation and civil engineering of bridges. He used some of his ideas for building trusses on a bridge to creating stacked wings for planes. Chanute was also honored by becoming part of the Frieze of American History, in the Capitol Rotunda, in Washington DC.  

There is a true crime story connected to Springdale Cemetery. The body of Mildred Hallmark was found inside the cemetery on June 18, 1935. Mildred had been a pretty auburn-haired nineteen-year-old. She had been heading home the night before after a date at the movie theater. She took the streetcar to her stop and was never seen alive again. A local newspaper article reports on the trial after the arrest of a serial rapist in the area named Gerald Thompson.

 

Thompson was found guilty and sentenced to die in the electric chair at the Joliet prison. He had apparently punched Mildred so hard that he broke her neck. He was executed in October of 1935. Mildred may be our Lady in White at this cemetery. This apparition is usually seen close to where Mildred's body had been discovered near a place that had been the Duck Pond. A gazebo now stands near the spot. She is seen wearing white because that is the color of dress that she wore on her date. People also report orbs of light that flutter around the gazebo.

Other mysterious activity includes hearing disembodied voices in the cemetery, not only talking to each other, but talking to the person who hears them. Some kind of haunting music is heard on the air as well. One man reported having a conversation with an elderly man who looked very real to him, but ended up vanishing into thin air as he started to walk away.  

There are also reports of a Witches Circle here. The Cole Family Plot can be located because of two prominent features: the sassafras tree and a granite obelisk monument made from imported Scotch granite that feature a large inverted torch on one side. There is a granite circle that borders the plot. The Cole Family was headed by Almiran Cole who opened Peoria's first distillery. He and his wife Chloe are buried here, along with their children. They had nine of them and many died young, with eight having their final resting place here. The distinctive sassafras tree here has been used twice by people who hanged themselves, the most recent in 2000. It has the nickname, the Devil's Tree and many believe that is because the leaves of the sassafras look like a trident or pitchfork. Adding to the mystique of this plot is the fact that the Cole family is buried in a circle around the obelisk. That is where the nickname Witches Circle comes from. And there are rumors that Satanic rituals have been performed in Cole Circle. Adding credibility to these rumors are people who claim to hear chanting on the air, feel cold spots and some claim to not only get that feeling of being watched, but they actually see weird shadowy figures in the circle. 

Erin Egnatz's, of Hauntings Around America, experience, "I recently visited Springdale Cemetery on a very cold and windy day which made investigating pretty tough. I spent a majority of my time in the Summit Range area. Here I was drawn to a couple headstones that had been knocked over. I don't know how long it has been since they fell but you could definitely feel the overwhelming sadness of the area. As I was visiting these headstones (pictured above) I began to hear music coming from, what I suspect was around the 1920's but I could be off by a bit, but I do not it was from a long time ago. I followed the music for awhile, which led me to a lovely mausoleum that had clearly been touched by time. I no longer heard the music but was completely absorbed by it. The door had a slight hole which made it possible to see inside the mausoleum. Inside was the burial chambers of the dead along with flowers which had clearly been there for quite awhile as they had all turned black and brittle with age."

We love our cemeteries whether they come with a haunting or not. Are any of these places full of stones and bones haunted? That is for you to decide!