Three Historical Cemeteries with Ghostly Pasts
Who doesn’t love a ghost story as we ramp up for Halloween? During October, thousands of Americans will tour graveyards for spooky thrills and chilling encounters. It should be no surprise that the most interesting (and eerie) locations to visit are also the most historic. Continue reading to discover the stories behind three historical cemeteries with ghostly pasts.
Charter St. Cemetery – Massachusetts
The Charter Street Cemetery, also known as the Old Burying Point Cemetery, was created in 1637, making it the oldest graveyard in Salem and one of the oldest in the country. Salem nobles and those who were enslaved are buried here, but only the nobles received tombstones. Many individuals involved in the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692-1693 were also laid to rest in this cemetery, including Judge John Hathorne, Bartholomew Gedney, and Eleanor Hollingworth.
Judge John Hathorne was the chief examiner of the witchcraft trials. Though he never completed any legal training, his status as a wealthy merchant landowner made him a trusted official. Throughout the trials, Hathorne always assumed guilt and interrogated the accused with cruel lines of questioning. His actions led to the hangings of nineteen innocent people. Even after the trials, when many who were involved regretted their actions, Hathorne felt no shame. Hathorne did in 1717 at the age of 76. His original headstone is still viewable, preserved by a large sheet of granite. Visitors claim that Hathorne's ghost fills the cemetery with a palpable feeling of dread.
The ghost of Mary Bright Corey, the second wife of Giles Corey, is also said to linger in the cemetery. Mary Bright Corey died in 1684, eight years before the witchcraft trials. Her husband, Giles Corey, was a successful farmer who had bad luck with women. Giles lost his first wife to disease. After the passing of his second wife, Mary, he married Martha. Martha became the victim of the witch hysteria; Giles even testified against her. Ironically, shortly after her death, neighbors accused Giles of also practicing witchcraft. Before Giles could be found guilty, he was squashed to death in his field by Sherrif Corwin.
Gettysburg National Cemetery – Pennsylvania
The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle conflict ever fought in America. Over 40,000 men lost their lives. For days, the dead lay either on the battlefield or in shallow graves. Pencil writing on wooden boards randomly marked mass graves, but soon, rain began to erase identifications and erode the land. As you can imagine, the smell was so bad that residents held handkerchiefs dipped in peppermint and vanilla to their noses to block the stench. Local citizens began to fear that the countless bodies would spread disease, and they demanded a cemetery to bury the dead.
A committee was appointed to choose a site for the new burial ground. The Gettysburg National Cemetery is located where the Union army resisted Pickett’s charge. At the dedication ceremony, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous remarks now known as the Gettysburg Address.
After the dedication, the Union soldiers were moved to the National Cemetery, but the Confederate soldiers remained in separate graves until they were taken back to the South in the 1870s. The National Cemetery contains the tombs of 979 unknown soldiers and thousands from the Civil War, World War I, and the Spanish American War.
It is no surprise that the site of our fallen heroes is the location of countless claims of paranormal activity. Many say they have witnessed ghosts marching around the cemetery and heard the sounds of cannons, screams, and gunfire. Others catch the smell of decaying bodies from centuries ago.
St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 – Louisiana
New Orleans is known for its spooky cemeteries, but visitors report the most creepy encounters at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in the French quarter. The cemetery is unique because of its above-ground tombs and the fact that it is still used for burials. The St. Louis cemetery is divided into three sections; the first was laid out at the end of the 18th century, and the other two were later created because of yellow fever epidemics.
The first cemetery section is the oldest and supposedly the most haunted. The Spanish governing officials established it in 1789 on a piece of land that was too swamp-ridden to build upon. The tombs found throughout are large because they contain multiple members of the same family. The cemetery features the graves of many notable citizens, including Etienne Bore, the first mayor of New Orleans, Homer Plessy, who challenged racial segregation in the supreme court, and Marie Laveau, famed voodoo doctor.
Laveau was born in 1801 in the French Quarter. She was a hairdresser by trade to aristocratic women, but she applied the knowledge of herbal remedies learned from her mother to become a successful voodoo practitioner. Supposedly, she cured and saved many citizens from yellow fever during the 19th century. Laveau is buried in plot 347 and often greets visitors in an unfriendly manner. There are reports of her spirit pinching arms and in some cases, even knocking people to the ground.
A sadder yet more friendly spirit by the name of Henry Vignes is also believed to roam the graveyard. Vignes was a 19th-century sailor who settled in New Orleans. As the story goes, Vignes owned important papers about his family’s tomb. Before he left on a voyage, he asked the owner of a boarding house to protect the documents. The owner instead sold Vignes’s family tomb. Vignes was not able to buy back the tomb and unfortunately died shortly after. Because he lost his family plot, he was buried in an unmarked grave. His ghost is frequently spotted at funerals searching for a place to rest.
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