Visiting Strange Graves: A Scary Encounter with the Countess

It was a November night in 1984, and we had just seen A Nightmare on Elm Street in my hometown of Haverhill, Massachusetts. The "we" in this case were me, my friend Christine, and Cesar, an exchange student from Mexico spending the year at our high school. We had screamed and been appropriately terrified during the movie, and we were in the mood for more scary stuff after it ended. We had watched teenagers encounter terror and death. Maybe we wanted to encounter them ourselves?

"Let's go to the Countess's grave," Christine suggested in the parking lot.

"Yes!" I said. I knew about the grave but never been there myself.

"What is the Countess's grave?" Cesar asked.

We tried to explain. I had first heard about the grave when I was in fourth grade. Some kids from Haverhill's Rocks Village neighborhood told me what they were doing on Halloween night. They were going to wait outside an old cemetery to see if the Countess emerged from her grave. I'm not sure what would happen next, but having seen old Dracula movies I assumed that a countess must also be a vampire. They seemed to feel the same way too.

As a teenager I knew the vampire legend probably wasn't true but the grave still had a reputation as being spooky and somehow supernatural. Perhaps it was haunted, or possibly cursed. It was the perfect place to visit after seeing a horror movie so we got in Christine's car and followed the river until we reached Rocks Village. The old Colonial homes of Rocks Village are charming during the day but they were pretty spooky that night. The Greenwood Cemetery was even spookier, surrounded as it was by a black iron fence.

The Countess's Grave. Photo from Haverhill Public Library.

We drove into the cemetery. Spookiest of all was the Countess's grave. Her gravestone was surrounded by a black iron cage. What supernatural evil had it been built to contain? What horror was trapped within? What...

Suddenly we heard something scratching on the roof of the car.

"Oh my God!" Christine said. "Did you hear that?!"

Conversation came to a stop as we listened intently. Then we heard it again. Something scratching on the roof. It sounded like fingernails, or maybe knives. We had just seen Freddie Kruger terrorize teenagers with his knife-fingered glove...

Then we heard laughter from the back seat. Christine and I turned around to see Cesar with his hand out an open window, scratching his fingers along the car's roof.

*****

We didn't know it at the time, but the Countess's gravestone had originally been enclosed in the iron cage to keep tourists from chipping pieces off as souvenirs. Mary Ingalls (1786 - 1807) was apparently the United States's first countess, a title she assumed after marrying Count Francois de Vipart when she was only 21. Count de Vipart had wound up in Rocks Village after fleeing a rebellion in Guadaloupe and he supposedly fell in love with Ingalls at first sight. Their marriage was passionate but unfortunately short-lived. Mary died a few years later after they wed and her husband returned to France. 

Their doomed romance was immortalized by the poet John Greenleaf Whittier in his 1863 poem "The Countess." The poem was quite popular in the 19th and early 20th century and Mary's grave became a tourist attraction. Fans of the poem who visited the grave chipped off small pieces as souvenirs until an iron cage was put up around it. 

I say Whittier "immortalized" the Countess but none of my friends knew anything about his poem or the Countess's real life. They certainly weren't taught to us in high school literature or history courses. We just knew that it was a strange grave, and a strange grave must have a strange story attached to it. Not knowing the real story we just made one up that seemed appropriate.

This is actually pretty common in New England. There are lots of strange-looking graves that are perfectly innocuous, but strange legends arise because of the grave's unusual appearance. Here are just a few I know about:

Midnight Mary's Grave, New Haven, Connecticut. Mary Hart's epitaph describes how she died at midnight on October 15, 1872 and contains this ominous quote from the Book of Job: "The people shall be troubled at midnight and pass away." Because of that ominous quote, legends have developed claiming that Mary was buried alive, was an evil witch, and/or that she kills anyone who visits her grave at midnight.

Black Agnes, Montpelier, Vermont. This large sculpture of a robed figure is actually titled Thanatos (death in Greek) and marks the grave of a wealthy businessman. Most graves in the Green Mount cemetery are much more modest, and so folklore has transformed Thanatos into Black Agnes, a statue that kills anyone who sits on it.

The Witch's Grave, York Maine. Mary Nasson's grave in York's Old Burying Ground is covered with a huge stone slab. A plaque nearby explains that the slab was placed there to keep animals from digging up her body but local legends claim Mary was a witch. The slab keeps her restless soul from rising out of her grave.

Colonel Buck's Monument, Bucksport, Maine. The large funerary monument erected to honor the founder of Bucksport has a strange stain on it shaped like a boot. The stain is probably caused by iron in the stone. Legends claim that it was placed there as a curse by a witch the Colonel executed.

You get the idea and may even know of some similar graves yourself. These legends may not be historically accurate but they definitely are psychologically powerful. Cemeteries remind us of our own mortality and these strange graves speak to us with particularly loud voices. 

Like a good horror movie they tell us the scary things we secretly long to hear. They tell us about the thin line between the living and the dead, about our darkest fears, and about the inescapable power of death itself. But also like a horror movie, our encounters with these strange graves are voluntary. We choose to visit them and (possibly) experience frightening things, but (usually) escape intact in the end. 

The Countess's gravestone was removed for repairs and sadly no longer stands in the Greenwood cemetery. I haven't seen Christine or Cesar in many, many years but I still fondly remember that night we visited a haunted grave.

Is There A Ghost In This Photo?

More specifically, is there the ghost of a witch in this photo?

A few months ago I wrote about Mary Nasson of York, Maine. According to legend, Mary was an herbalist accused of witchcraft and her ghost is said to haunt York's Old Burying Ground. The legend about Mary Nasson's ghost has been around since at least the middle of the 19th century.

Recently, a man named Steve (who reads this blog) was visiting York's Wild Kingdom zoo with his family. His daughter posed for a photo in one of those cutouts where you stick your face through a hole. She was alone, but after they took the photo Steve's wife noticed two faces were visible: their daughter's, and the ghostly white face of a woman.

Please note, I have blurred out Steve's daughter's face for privacy reasons. 

Steve told me that when he saw the face he thought of Mary Nasson's ghost. She supposedly haunts York and possibly was an herbalist, so he thought perhaps her ghost would be attracted to flowers and butterflies.

First off, I have to say thank you to Steve for sending me this photo. It is great! I think it's the creepiest (and therefore best) ghost photo I have seen in a long, long time.

And I also have to thank Steve for sending me another photo that put's everything into context:

As you can see, and as Steve mentioned in his email to me, the face is caused by the white tarp behind the photo cutout. This is a really good example of pareidolia.

Pareidolia is the tendency of the human mind to see patterns in inanimate objects. In particular, it is the tendency to see sentient, living beings in inanimate objects. For example, think of New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain, where people thought a rock formation looked like a human face, or of people who see the face of Jesus in burnt toast. Those are cases of pareidolia.

Many years ago when I was in grad school I read an entire book about pareidolia and anthropomorphism called Faces In The Clouds. The author, Stewart Elliott Guthrie, claims that people are hardwired to see living creatures in the world around them. This is an evolutionary advantage. Is that a stick in your yard, or a snake? It's better to think it is a snake and be wrong than to instantly assume it is a stick. Is that a bear in the dark woods, or just a boulder? A bear might attack you, so it is safer to think it is a bear. You get the idea. Pareidolia helped our ancestors to survive in a dangerous world.

In this case, the pareidolia leads us to ask "Is that a person in the photo, or just some white tarp?" Our brains are wired to see the white tarp as a person.

The word pareidolia comes from the Greek para (meaning "instead of" or "false") and eidolon (meaning "image"). The word eidolon has some interesting supernatural and religious connotations. It was sometimes used to mean ghost or phantom in ancient Greek, and our English word idol is derived from the word eidolon. Depending on your perspective, an idol is either the image of a god, or the false image of a god. It all depends on what you believe about gods.

We all interpret the world around us. Our minds need to filter out most of the sensory stimulus around us or we would be unable to function. So I think when you encounter a case of pareidolia it is useful to ask "Why am I experiencing this here and now?"

If you are a hardcore scientific rationalist, a la Mr. Spock from Star Trek, you might answer, "Oh, that ancient part of my brain I inherited from my hominid ancestors is acting up again. Silly me, there's no face in that tarp."

I am not a hardcore rationalist all the time, and I don't think anyone really is. There are times where I am all about the science, and there are times where I am completely irrational. If I had been reading about Mary Nasson, the ghost witch of York, Maine, and then took a photo in York and saw what appears to be a ghostly face, I might answer, "Hey, maybe that is the ghost I've heard about!"

Of course, it is clearly the tarp. But couldn't a ghost or other spiritual entity manipulate a tarp to show their face? It is the same principal behind the Virgin Mary manifesting in a grilled cheese sandwich, or the monkey god Hanuman manifesting in the bole of a tree in Singapore. We live in a material world, and spiritual entities manipulate matter to send messages to perceptive people. 

Well, at least that's the theory. If you don't believe in gods or ghosts it's all just caused by faulty perception. This is not a debate that I can resolve in a single blog post or probably ever...

If you go to York's Wild Kingdom looking for the ghost you might be disappointed. Steve sent one final picture and the face is not visible. Had it only been the wind or the angle of the camera that caused the face to appear? Or maybe Mary Nasson had accomplished her ghostly chore and gone on her way.

The Witch's Grave of York Maine: Is The Story True?

A while ago someone who reads this blog asked me to post about an alleged witch's grave in York, Maine. What a great idea! I love old graveyards, and I love New England witches. So here's a post that brings those two great tastes together like a Reese's peanut butter cup of the uncanny.

When I was a kid my family went to York, Maine a few times for vacations. I remember going to the beach, and visiting the zoo there. When I was a kid I think it was called York Wild Animal Farm, but these days it's York's Wild Kingdom.

As far as I know, we did not visit the Old Burying Ground, which is located in charming and historic York Village. It's too bad, because as with most charming cemeteries around here it has a weird legend is attached to it. I probably would have enjoyed hearing it.

The legend is about the grave of Mary Nasson, who who passed away in 1774. Her gravestone is a little different than the others. It has a portrait of Mary on it, and is covered with a big stone slab.

Photo from The Journal Inquirer.

A plaque on the cemetery wall indicates that the stone slab was put there by her family to prevent animals from digging around in Mary's grave. Local folklore gives another explanation: it was put there to keep Mary, who was a witch, from rising from the dead.

I think the stone succeeded in keeping the animals away, but it hasn't kept Mary's ghost from coming up to the surface. According to Joseph Citro's Weird New England, her ghost has reportedly been seen pushing local children on swings and giving them wildflowers. Hmmm. For a witch's ghost she doesn't seem particularly menacing. Online I've found quite a few sites claiming that Mary Nasson only acquired her witchy reputation because she was an effective herbalist. Her neighbors didn't understand how her cures worked and therefore thought they were magic. Oh, and maybe she could perform exorcisms...

Image from Atlas Obscura

Those stories indicate that Mary was basically a good person, and if she was a witch she only practiced white magic. Other, creepier stories say Mary was executed for witchcraft and that her gravestone emanates a strange heat. The crows that flock around the cemetery are said to be her familiars. Spooky!

So, was Mary Nasson a good witch, or a bad witch, or just someone who has an unusual gravestone? Are any of these legends true?

I don't know if they are true, but they definitely are old. I thought they might just be recent urban folklore but found they date back to at least the 19th century. I found this passage in ‪1894's Ancient City of Gorgeana and Modern Town of York (Maine) from Its Earliest Settlement‬: ‪Also Its Beaches and Summer Resorts‬ by George Alexander Emery:

Near the southwest corner of the old burying-ground is a grave, with head and foot stones, between which and lying on the grave is a large flat rock, as large as the grave itself. The inscription reads thus: - "Mary Nasson, wife of Samuel Nasson, died August 28, 1774, aged 29 years." No one, at least in this town, seems to know anything about her origin, death or even of the singular looking grave. No other occupant of a grave bearing this cognomen can be found in this cemetery, and the name is unknown in the town. A great many surmises and conjectures have been advanced in regard to this matter, in order to arrive at the facts, if there be any, and to clear up the dark affair, but nothing definite has ever come out of the effort. The writer of this, when a youth, living in York, was given to understand that this stone was placed there to keep down a witch that was buried beneath it.

In short, no one knows the real, historically-documented truth about Mary Nasson. Although George Alexander Emery doesn't believe Mary Nasson was a witch, he adds fuel to the fire by providing yet another legend. According to this one, a disembodied evil spirit used to haunt some rooms in an old house near the cemetery. It was banished from the house, but now roams the cemetery's perimeter, waiting for Mary to arise from her grave and join it.

I don't like to debunk legends; I like to savor them, so I'll just close with a couple thoughts. First, anomalous gravestones often attract legends. Rightly or wrongly, people tend to think that strange graves must contain strange occupants. 

Second, the idea is very old that special effort is required to restrain a restless spirit. For example, in old European vampire lore a stake to the heart literally nails a vampire into its grave. Closer to home, Eunice Cole, an accused witch of Hampton, New Hampshire, was supposedly staked through the heart after death and had a horseshoe placed on top of her. It's not unreasonable (in folk belief) to think that a big rock might keep a ghost from coming out of the grave.

One last note: I am now writing a bi-monthly column for Spare Change News called Bizarre Boston. If you live or work in Boston be sure to buy an issue and help the city's homeless community. You can see one of my columns (about a Boston smallpox epidemic) here.