The Ghost of Central Burying Ground

Boston is one of the oldest cities in America. It was first settled by the Puritans in 1630, and downtown Boston has some fine old cemeteries that reflect the city's age. Copp's Hill Burying Ground, the Granary Burying Ground, and King's Chapel Burying Ground are the resting places for patriots, Puritans, founding fathers, and possibly even Mother Goose. 

Those three cemeteries are amazing places to visit, and if you haven't been you should go today! They're also quite popular with tourists. But if you want a quieter, spookier, cemetery experience you should visit Central Burying Ground. It's the least popular of the four downtown cemeteries, but definitely has its own particular charms. 

I visited Central Burying Ground recently on a warm Saturday. I was meeting a friend downtown and arrived early, so I decided to kill some time wandering around the cemetery. It's located on Boston Common right next to the Boylston T station, but despite its convenient location very few visitors were there that day. There were only two people other than myself: someone feeding squirrels, and an Emerson student sitting on a crypt smoking a cigarette. 

At first I wasn't even sure it was open to tourists. Most of its gates were locked, and it took me a while to find the one open entrance. But once I was inside I had the cemetery mostly to myself. 

Central Burying Ground is the newest of the four old cemeteries. It was established in 1756, and is the resting place of British soldiers who died during the Revolution, American patriots from the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Boston Tea Party, composer William Billings, and painter Gilbert Stuart. Stuart is well-known for his portraits of George Washington, and is probably the most famous person buried there. 

According to local lore, Central Burying Ground is also home to at least one ghost. In the 1970s, a local dentist named Matt Rutger was walking through the cemetery on a pleasant spring day when he had a strange encounter. He was alone in the cemetery, but kept feeling someone tapping him on the shoulder. There was no one behind him when he turned around. The weird tapping continued, until finally he felt someone grab him by the collar and pull him backwards. Again, there was no one there. 

Rutger was understandably disturbed, so he began to walk quickly towards the cemetery gates. As he did, he saw something odd. 

"'I saw a young girl standing motionless in the rear corner of the cemetery, staring at me intently.' She wore a white dress, and her utter immobility in and of itself seemed eerie. Dr. Rutger turned in the opposite direction, but, to his amazement, the girl instantly relocated to the front of the cemetery, nearly fifty yards from where she'd stood only moments before. Dr. Rutger changed directions a couple more times, and each time the ghostly figure cropped up at a different station. Finally he made it to the sidewalk, but as he strode away he felt a hand slip into his pocket. He watched in amazement as his car keys levitated free of his pocket, dangled in mid-air, then fell with a jingle to the ground." (Holly Mascott Nadler, Ghosts of Boston Town, 2002).

That's quite the encounter. Rutger is not the only person who's encountered a ghost at Central Burying Ground. According to Sam Baltrusis's Ghosts of Boston (2012), other visitors have reported seeing a ghostly young girl in the cemetery, and one woman on a tour even became annoyed because she thought a fellow tourist was tapping her on the back. No one else had touched her, though. Some visitors have also said that someone (or something) grabbed their keys from their pockets. The ghost is apparently quite consistent. 

No one has identified the ghost who haunts Central Burying Ground. Many of the cemetery's graves have been disturbed by construction, so if you believe in ghosts perhaps that is what causes the alleged haunting. For example, in 1836 many bodies were moved to new tombs to accommodate a Boylston Street extension, and in 1895 many bodies were found in unmarked graves during construction of the subway line. They were re-interred in a large mass grave in the cemetery's northwest corner. No one likes to be awoken rudely from their sleep, right?

I did not see anything strange when I visited, but just had a peaceful cemetery stroll. I'd definitely recommend going to Central Burying Ground if you are interested in ghosts, or just want to enjoy a quiet space in the busiest part of the city. 

Vale End Cemetery: A Blue Lady, Terrifying Encounters, and Pukwudgies

Recently we took a trip to New Hampshire. We met up with our old friend Pasha, and then we did what anyone does on a beautiful early spring day: we went to look at haunted cemeteries.

Our first stop was Vale End Cemetery in Wilton, New Hampshire. Wilton is a beautiful town but Vale End has acquired an ominous reputation, particularly in the last few years. Demons, malevolent ghosts and pukwudgies have all been reported at this historic cemetery. To be honest I was a little scared as we drove up to New Hampshire!

HISTORY AND A BLUE LADY

The oldest grave in the cemetery, that of Phebe Cram, dates from 1752. The cemetery is first mentioned in town records in 1772, when the town voted to "fence the burying ground." In 1780 the town voted to upgrade the fence to a stone wall and to build a road to the cemetery. Someone donated more land to the burying ground in 1869, and in 1871 it was named Vale End Cemetery. 

I found that information in 1888's History of the Town of Wilton, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire by A.A. Livermore and Sewell Putnam. The authors don't mention anything about ghosts, demons or troll-like creatures at all. Not many town histories do but I was hoping to find some mention of Vale End's most famous ghost, the Blue Lady.

According to legends the Blue Lady has haunted Vale End cemetery for generations, but some of Wilton's older residents (and members of Wilton's historical society) say the story only dates to the 1970s. The Blue Lady is said to be the ghost of Mary Ritter Spaulding, who died at age 35 and was buried in the cemetery in 1808. Mary was the first wife of Captain Isaac Spaulding and shares a grave with his second wife, also named Mary Spaulding.

Mary Ritter Spaulding's grave

By all accounts Mary Ritter Spaulding was a kind and loving wife and good mother to her seven children. Some people even say that Mary worked as a healer in Wilton and cured illness with herbal remedies.  Her benign nature while alive is reflected in her activities as a ghost. The Blue Lady manifests primarily as a column of blue light above her grave and more infrequently as a woman in old-fashioned attire wandering through the cemetery. Does she have unfinished business? Is she watching over the loved ones buried around her? Most people who see the Blue Lady say the encounter is spooky and odd but not terrifying.

I do find the Blue Lady interesting. The column of light is so impersonal but also feels almost religious somehow. Her title, the Blue Lady, reminds me of the many times people have seen the Virgin Mary as an apparition in blue. I'm not saying that the Virgin Mary is appearing in this cemetery, but maybe people's experiences of paranormal phenomena are colored by pre-existing cultural patterns. Maybe the first person who reported seeing the Blue Lady at Vale End made an an unconscious connection between two kind, loving mothers named Mary.

A SHOCKING DEATH AND... DEMONS?

Up until the early 2000s legends about Vale End focused on the Blue Lady. That changed and the cemetery has since acquired a more sinister reputation. The change seems to date back to November 1999, when paranormal investigator Fiona Broome and some associates were investigating hauntings at Nashua's Gilson Road Cemetery. Broome's photographer Nancy had brought her teenage daughter along, but the daughter became frightened during the investigation. Nancy and her daughter left and decided to visit a friendlier cemetery: Vale End in Wilton. After all, the Blue Lady was quite benign compared to the restless spirits at Gilson Road.

Nancy and her daughter drove to Vale End that same night. Unfortunately their experience there was terrifying. As they walked towards the Blue Lady's grave they saw something dark rise up from a nearby grave. They ran back to the car in terror and drove off so quickly one mirror was knocked off as they swiped a tree.

 

Later that night the daughter called Fiona Broome. She was scared, and wondered if anything ever follows people home from graveyards. Fiona assured her nothing does.

Five days later Nancy the photographer was found dead in her car in a Wilton parking lot. A coroner claimed it was a sudden heart attack. Nancy wasn't known to have any heart disease, though, and Fiona Broome and other paranormal investigators wondered if something sinister really had followed her home from Vale End.

In the spring of 2000 Fiona and some colleagues decided to investigate Vale End at night. As they made their way towards the Blue Lady's grave Fiona saw a three-foot tall hairy red humanoid. She said the creature reminded her of a muppet like Elmo or Grover. As she walked towards it she slammed into what felt like an invisible force field - and an unmistakably evil presence. Dozens more of the small humanoids began to appear and she and her colleagues fled the cemetery, but not before taking photos. Only when she was ten miles away did the feeling of evil fade.

When Fiona developed the photos they were completely black and showed nothing, except for one with a vaguely humanoid red blob. Was it one of the small humanoids? Perhaps, but when one of Fiona's friends turned the image around she thought it looked like a classic image of Satan.

OUR VISIT TO VALE END

You can read Fiona Broome's full account on her website. She discourages anyone from visiting Vale End, particularly at night, but her story of demons and small humanoids has of course had the opposite effect. A lot of people have a hunger for the supernatural, and what better place to feed that hunger than a cemetery possibly haunted by demons?

Some people have recently speculated that those small humanoids she saw were actually pukwudgies, one of the names for New England's local magical little people. If you read the comments on this page, you'll see that someone even claimed to have successfully photographed one at Vale End.

Many cultures make connections between fairies and the dead, so I suppose it's not surprising that someone would see pukwudgies at a cemetery. I have written about them before, and hearing that people have seen them at Vale End was one reason I wanted to visit. So I don't know whether I am disappointed or relieved that we didn't see any when we were there. Probably relieved!

As I wrote earlier, I was a little scared on the way to Vale End, but nothing unusual or bad happened to us. The weather was beautiful and we all found the cemetery to be quite peaceful. There are a lot of interesting stones to see, like that of Samuel Greele, who was "suddenly killed by the fall of a tree on the 25th of September, 1798", or the marker for Edward Herrick which has this rhyming epitaph:

Afflictions sore longtime I bore

Physicians were in vain

Till God did please, and death did seize

To ease me of my pain

We of course also visited the grave of Mary Ritter Spaulding. Her gravestone is easy to find since it has been dramatically broken. We did not see a column of blue light but we noticed that people leave coins on her grave, probably as a way to honor the cemetery's resident ghost.

Vale End Cemetery is open during daylight hours only, not at night, which decreases your chances of encountering a malevolent entity. The Wilton Police patrol the cemetery and will remove you from the cemetery if they find you there after dark. You may not see a pukwudgie but you will see a patrol car! If you visit obey the rules and please don't disturb any of the stones. And you might want to leave a coin for the Blue Lady.