Blood Cemetery ghosts, Hollis, NH
Mar 17th, 2008 | By Fiona Broome | Category: Nashua and vicinity
“Blood Cemetery” is the local name for Pine Hill Cemetery in Hollis, near Nashua, NH. That nickname refers to the ghost of Abel Blood, who supposedly haunts the graveyard.
Urban legends claim occult connections to Abel Blood. However, history portrays him as a solid, very Christian and philanthropic member of the community. We have no reason to believe otherwise.
Whoever (or whatever) haunts Blood Cemetery… it’s probably not Abel Blood.
Pine Hill Cemetery (aka “Blood Cemetery”) is a lovely place to visit, but it doesn’t have a dramatically “haunted” feeling that we find at other ghostly sites.
However, our own experiences and reliable stories from others lead us to believe that it has some paranormal activity. We recommend this cemetery for daytime ghost hunting only.
Here are some of our reports:
- The Haunting of Abel Blood (10/1999)
- An odd misty photograph (10/1999)
- Ghost Orb or Bug? (10/1999)
- How it felt in the cemetery (10/1999)
- HALLOWEEN 1999
- The Small Grey Ghost, a true story of the paranormal.
- Halloween night, a baffling experience
- November 1st, a possible Otherworldly explanation?
- More eerie events at Blood Cemetery
- Blood Cemetery’s Gothic headstone inscriptions
- Yes, it is silly: “Ghosts tampered with my gas gauge?“
To visit Blood Cemetery – Take Exit 6 (Rte. 130) from Rte. 3, go west to Nartoff Rd., and then travel north on Nartoff (which jogs right and then left) to reach this very haunted cemetery near the crest of the hill. The cemetery will be on your right. A low wooden sign suspended with chains says “Pine Hill Cemetery.” Park at the side of the road, but off the pavement to allow cars to pass easily.
Locals call this “Blood Cemetery” for its most famous ghost, Abel Blood. According to many visitors (and one of our most reliable Hollow Hill researchers, who’s seen this), Abel Blood’s headstone changes at night so the finger on the stone points down instead of heavenward.
However, the cemetery is closed dusk to dawn; the police patrol steadily, especially around Halloween. They’ve even approached us when we were photographing (legally) from the roadside.
Also, many Hollis residents don’t like the nickname “Blood Cemetery.” (We’ve had enough angry emails, thank you. We didn’t invent the nickname; we simply report the stories and folklore.) If you ask locally for directions, be sure to call it “Pine Hill Cemetery.”
There’s another reason to call the cemetery by its correct name: The Blood family name was large and widespread in New England. Many cemeteries, especially in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, include members of the Blood family.
So, if you use that name when asking for directions, you may be sent to a totally different cemetery… with its own ghost stories and Blood family graves. They all seem to be nicknamed “Blood Cemetery.”
If you’d like to visit a website dedicated to Blood Cemetery, we recommend Blood Cemetery (Pine Hill Cemetery).
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I lived in Hollis from age 7-16, and am actually about to move back now, age 18. We’re moving to a house down the road from Pine Hill Cemetery.
I have a few things to share.
First, I don’t know anyone who would really get upset at the cemetery being called ‘Blood Cemetery’ – granted, for directions, its probably better to call it Pine Hill … but everyone I know in town (and Hollis is a SMALL town, everyone knows everyone) calls it Blood Cemetery, and that is what I’ve called it for as long as I’ve known about it.
Second, Abel Blood’s headstone was knocked down in 2007 as a practical joke, and switched with one at Gilson Cemetery in Nashua. Obviously this was discovered, but the Abel Blood’s new headstone no longer has the finger that points up and down. Its a shame, a lot of people never got to see it.
Third. I can absolutely attest to that place having some very weird stuff going on. I’ve been inside the cemetery multiple times, and each time something weird has happened. One time a few years back, two of my friends and I were there about an hour after sunset, and we were near the back of the cemetery. There’s a tree of some sort right next to a block headstone, I believe it belongs to a female (can’t remember her name). We turned to leave and as we looked back, there was a weird mist coming from what looked like behind the headstone. Very weird. Another time, I was with someone and we had just entered the cemetery when we noticed a severe drop in temperature once we stepped onto the grounds – I’d guess around 10 degrees. A few steps further, my chest started getting very tight and I got a splitting headache almost instantly. We left immediately and were in such a rush that I just grabbed a key to start the car – it started, but before I put it in drive, I shut the car off and looked at the key, because it didn’t feel right. It was a house key. Freaked me out pretty good.
I’ve never seen the ghost kids in the road, but have had some unusual experiences while driving on that road. Interior lights have turned on when just passing the border into the cemetery, and shut off just as we passed the border going by the cemetery. Cars I’ve been in have started beeping for no plausible reason at the same points, and one time a car I was in even started drifting off the road on it’s own, despite the driver’s effort to correct it. All very weird and wholly unexplainable events.
Those aren’t all the things I’ve experienced there, but I do know that I am very sensitive to things like this. It kind of runs in the family. So it doesn’t completely surprise me that these things have occurred in my presence. Just thought I’d share some of that.
Thanks, Victoria! I agree that Pine Hill Cemetery (aka Blood Cemetery) has a lot going on when it’s active. When it’s not, it’s just another old New England cemetery, although it’s a very pretty one. What we don’t know yet is the pattern of activity… whether it’s certain days of the week, certain calendar dates, certain times of day, or what. Studying that would be a really valuable project for a ghost research team.
Your experiences are great. Thanks for telling us about them! They confirm many reports that we’ve heard, as well as our own experiences. The mist phenomena may be related to what I thought was a fluffy gray cat when I was there one late afternoon, but I have also seen the mist around a few other stones. It’s very odd.
The “Blood Cemetery” name issue is common in many communities. Locals seem to be fine with their neighbors using a nickname for a nearby location, but if anyone outside the community uses that nickname, a few people get very upset. It’s okay; almost everyone calls Pine Hill Cemetery by its nickname, Blood Cemetery. I only use the proper name as often as I do, because many New England towns had members of the Blood family, so there are a lot of cemeteries with “Blood Cemetery” nicknames, especially in Massachusetts and south central NH.
The 2002 prank — swapping Abel Blood’s headstone with Walter Gilson’s — was sad. I’m the one who discovered the swap and reported it. I’m still upset about it, because it pointed a finger (no pun intended) at Hollow Hill, since — at the time — mine was the only website talking about both of those haunted cemeteries. I understand that it sounded like a fun joke to a few high school students around April Fool’s Day.
However, the students who did it didn’t consider the long-term consequences for the families of the deceased, and the people who visit those cemeteries regularly, including ghost hunters. That prank is another reason why I don’t report as many haunted locations as I used to. Some of the best haunted public sites around New England will never appear in Hollow Hill articles, because I can’t risk the vandalism or notoriety that can spoil our research opportunities. The Abel Blood incident made that clear.
I’m sorry if you felt it was a joke of some sort.
I can reassure you it was not.
switching the headstones was the only idea four mid-twenties males could think of to make sure a ghost or spirit would react.
but at last no paranormal activity was observed while the headstones were switched.
I mean if there is an afterlife and I was watching people disrespecting my burial site I would find a way to at the very least scare them off.
but this did not happen…therefor I will never believe in anything paranormal.
good-luck finding actual proof of any sort of an afterlife!
Well, “Jon Doe”… You’re in your mid-twenties now, but — years ago when it occurred — the switch was claimed by some Nashua high school students. One shared enough inside information to suggest that he (or she) was telling the truth about who did it.
(I’d heard rumors even before I taught a ghost photography class at one of Nashua’s high schools. Someone’s sister was terrible at keeping secrets… but you probably already knew that.)
Sure, it was around the time of April Fools Day, but maybe the spirits played a prank on you by not responding. Or, maybe the two relevant spirits aren’t actively haunting (or watching) their respective graves.
(Though I believe the person who told me he saw the finger pointed down, I’ve never encountered much ghostly energy around either of the graves involved. I also haven’t seen anything with glowing red eyes chase anyone out of Gilson Road cemetery, nor do I seriously think “Betty Gilson” appears on that road on foggy nights.)
But, if it wasn’t a joke, timing it around April Fools Day was a little foolish. I also didn’t appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night by some entity, insisting that I had to drive to Gilson Road to look at Walter’s gravestone. I mean, I have about 50 photos of it… it’s not as if I needed to see it again.
Having to report this to the police was no fun, either, because I was their first suspect, but I couldn’t get anyone else to help me restore the stones to their proper locations. (Even ghost hunters don’t like to move anything significant in a cemetery.)
I have never revealed what I knew about the prank, and I don’t intend to, ever. (You know that ISP numbers are recorded with each comment at this site… right? In the future, use an anonymizer when you’re saying something that could get you in trouble.)
Regarding your beliefs: Life has a way of revealing lessons when you’re ready for them. If you don’t believe in an afterlife now, that’s fine. When you revisit this question later, and I hope you take a more reasonable, scientific (and legal) approach. Or, you could just ask (privately, please) to join me on a few ghost hunts to see what really happens with the right tools, and when you know what to look for.
The only thing that sucks about that cemetary is that they have added motion sensor lights around the whole area so no matter where you go the flood lights turn on. It kinda sucks and I think it has killed alot of the activity out there.
Stella,
Thanks for the updates. Regarding Blood Cemetery in Hollis, NH (aka Pine Hill Cemetery), the town has been very aggressive about discouraging after-dark visitors to the cemetery. I’m sure the motion sensor lights are more practical than the rumored attempts by the police to scare visitors. According to stories I’ve heard, the police draped themselves in white sheets and hid behind the gravestones. When someone arrived, they’d jump up and make ghostly noises. (I’m not sure what “ghostly” noises are.)
Nashua doesn’t seem so hostile to the visitors who explore Gilson Road Cemetery and “Schoolhouse” cemetery next to the Royal Ridge shopping area. Then again, Nashua probably benefits from the additional tourists/visitors (at the very least, we’re buying extra batteries as ours seem to go flat) while Hollis doesn’t have businesses near Blood Cemetery.
And, to be fair to Hollis, several gravestones were stolen from that cemetery many years before I reported its ghosts at this website. So, that cemetery had problems long before ghost hunting became popular.
Hollis is a pretty town and Blood Cemetery has some great folklore, but for an interesting place to visit, Nashua offers far more.
– Fiona