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Abel Blood is one of the many ghosts haunting Hollis, New Hampshire’s “Blood Cemetery” (actually Pine Hill Road Cemetery), near Nashua, NH.
According to legend and first-person stories, Abel Blood is the eerie, solitary figure that people see at the top of the cemetery… but then he vanishes as they approach.
His gravestone is also haunted, and very credible sources describe chilling, visual changes on Blood’s gravestone.
Abel Blood’s history
Abel Blood — possibly Hollis’ most famous ghost — was buried at Pine Hill Road Cemetery in Hollis, New Hampshire, in 1867. His daughter (?) Betsy Blood is buried with him.
Studying his past to find reasons for his ghost to haunt Hollis, the records aren’t as clear as I’d like.
It appears that an Abel Blood had married just seven years before his death, but I haven’t had time to see how many Abel Bloods were in that area, and which records can be attributed to him. Here’s one of them.
And I think this is his daughter’s death record.
But here is part of a New Hampshire probate record from 1867, showing that Abel Blood had no children. So, there must have been more than one Abel Blood in the Hollis area, in that same general era, or Betsy died before him… or this story is more murky than I’d expected.
In history books, there are no references that suggest the occult connections mentioned in local legends.
In fact, Abel Blood’s genealogy and the town’s history suggest that he was a very Christian man and lived a good, law-abiding life.
It’s possible that he haunts the cemetery, and his life story – unraveled – might reveal a reason.
But no matter what the reason, most local ghost hunters agree that Abel Blood haunts the cemetery nicknamed “Blood Cemetery.”
The ghost of Abel Blood
According to local legends, Mr. Blood’s headstone changes after dark. The finger on the stone that points heavenward during the daylight hours, moves.
When Abel Blood’s ghost walks at night, the finger on the stone points towards the ground.
In fact, one of our Hollow Hill investigators led us to this cemetery, to see it in the daylight.
He had been there just once before, late one Halloween night, and he’d seen the famous headstone.
Revisiting that site with me – in daylight – he was shocked. Until that moment, he’d believed that Abel’s finger always pointed downward.
Note: The finger on the headstone was actually chipped off years ago. If you visit the cemetery, the outline of where the finger was — and part of the base — remains. However, this is old vandalism. You can tell by the lichen on the chipped-off area.
A disappointing first visit
I visited the cemetery twice on 11 Oct 1999, taking a few photos for this website, not to capture anomalies. I took 20 photos during the day and later at dusk, with a Kodak Advantix AF camera, using Fuji Advanced film, 200 ASA.
The photo below was taken at dusk. It has an orb towards the upper left corner of the photo. The orb is faint, but it’s there. (Click on the photo to see a larger version.)
I wasn’t using a flash with the camera, so that’s not a reflection from dust or moisture. (It was a dry evening, anyway.) It’s too round to be an insect.
Here’s my report from 11 Oct 1999:
The photo was taken at 6:30 pm. It was dusk and the sun had just set, behind me, but it was still light enough not to need a flash camera.
The cemetery is surrounded by farmland, currently an almost fully-harvested field of pumpkins. There was nothing in the area to reflect the scant remaining light of the day, or to create a reflection or lens flare.
This photo shows the oldest gravestones in the cemetery, mostly from the late 18th century and early 19th. I saw no orbs in real life, and only took the photos as an afterthought when something “felt odd” among those gravestones.
HOWEVER…
Later visits were far more productive. See these articles:
- An odd misty photograph (10/1999)
- How it felt in the cemetery (10/1999)
- HALLOWEEN 1999
- Blood Cemetety’s 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?“
More about Abel Blood’s grave location is at Find-A-Grave.
More information about the town of Hollis is at the official Hollis, NH website.
And I have no idea if the band, Abel Blood, has any connection to the ghost story.
dude my ancestors don’t haunt people
To “a person”: Do you want sympathy or applause? Personally, I have traced my family tree back to the 1500s, and a few of them may be haunting (or revisiting) the sites that they enjoyed during their lives on earth. I rather like the idea that, in the next plane of existence, we can return to check on places and people we feel close to. If someone interprets that as a “haunting”… well, that’s one way to look at it.
I choose not to buy into the commercial representation of ghosts and hauntings. When I work outside those confines, it seems very comforting that people (as ghosts or spirits) can return for a visit, now and then.
I payed blood cemetery a visit tonight. i took several pictures over abel bloods grave. my friend was in them. nothing unusual in most of the pics. but the second pic i took had a little white glowing spot in it just to the right of abels grave. Me nor my 2 friends can debunk it for anything. its not dust on the lens. no reflection from the flash. There for i personally believe it was the spirit of abel blood. which i think is really cool!!!!!:p
I visited the graveyard yesterday, February 24, 2019. My friend and I were able to find Able’s wife’s tombstone but Ables was missing, most likely by vandals. Someone has it stashed in their living room. Such a shame, but an interesting conversation piece to say the least!
My friends have visited this cemetery a handful of times at night, a few of those times one or all of them saw a woman in white that stays towards the back of the cemetery. On one occasion one friend saw her a few gravestones away and said, “ there she is” and when another friend turned to look, she started towards them. The first friend was able to see her face and she looked menacing and had green eyes, dark hair. Last time we went together, we walked through the middle of the cemetery and I was looking for her to the right. Less than a minute of us looking around, a different friend who hadn’t seen her the last time, told us we had to go and after we left, he told us she was standing in the back of the cemetery, in the middle, about 20 feet or so away from us. He said she had her head down and then looked up at us.
I just read on another site that Abel’s tombstone was removed by the town because people were vandalizing it.
That’s interesting. I’d heard that it had been stolen (again). I hope you’re right, because vandalism is bad enough; stealing tombstones is absolutely vile. I haven’t researched related laws, but some people have sold used gravestones. (Here’s one, older article: https://www.theindependent.com/news/old-tombstones-get-new-life-in-other-uses/article_7ed224ae-c1f7-5567-b52c-96a2a2cbb595.html ) Also, Hammond Castle in Gloucester, MA, USA is an example of how people used to collect grave markers (and worse) in the past.
From what I’ve encountered in my research, there is no way I’d be willing to live around a used gravestone. And if the police or some other agency have stored Abel Blood’s gravestone, I just hope it’s in something like a lead-lined room. While I’ve raised an eyebrow at some of the ghost stories connected with his grave & marker… well, I wouldn’t take any chances.