The following are just a few of the very Gothic inscriptions on headstones at the Blood Cemetery (aka Pine Hill Cemetery) on Nartoff Road in Hollis, NH.
From the headstone of Mrs. Rebecca Alexanders, died 24 Nov 1799:
Behold my friends as you pass by
As you are now so once was I
As I am now you soon must be
Prepare for death and follow me
From the headstone of Caleb Farley, Jun., died 17 Jul 1810:
Friends and Physicians could not save
My mortal body from the grave
Nor can the grave confine me here
When Christ shall call me to appear
From the headstone of Caleb Farley’s wife, Abigail, died 14 Dec 1819:
What though our in bred sins require
Our flesh to see the dust
Yet as the Lord our Savior rose
So all his followers must
These are just a few of the eerie inscriptions which appear on about one-third of the ancient headstones in this cemetery.
There were even more wonderful headstones with inscriptions, but those stones have been stolen.
Several, such as the Farley sisters’ headstones, have disappeared in recent years, and were replaced by plain markers without the flowery inscriptions.
That’s such a senseless loss.
(Also, the commercial market for stolen gravestones is one reason why the police are so watchful of cemeteries after dark.)
If you go ghost hunting in cemeteries, be sure to read the gravestone inscriptions. They provide helpful insights related to the era and the family of the person in that grave. Those ideas and sentiments may also give you a good idea why he or she haunts the cemetery.
As I reported in my article about the Haunted ‘Old Burying Yard’ of York, Maine, if someone’s headstone says, “I must lie here till Christ appears,” it’s likely that a spirit is near that grave, waiting.
From the moment I first heard local legends about Gilson Road Cemetery, I was intrigued.
That’s when it was still an isolated cemetery, far from streetlights and surrounded by dense trees on both sides of the road.
The nearest house was at least 1/4 mile away.
Despite its isolation – and partly because of it – Gilson Road Cemetery became the focus of my research, and an ideal place to test new equipment and train new investigators.
In the years that followed, the road was lowered, a subdivision moved in across the street, and the surroundings were landscaped.
Due to my online reports, Gilson Road Cemetery became a popular spot for visitors looking for a “good scare.” (That’s rarely a good idea.)
This page and those that follow describe what Gilson Road Cemetery was like during our early, formal investigations.
These are the people who visited the cemetery with me on 5 November 1999. I have changed most of their names to protect their privacy.
Alan, then a second-degree Black Belt karate instructor with a casual interest in ghosts. Ordinarily he has nerves of steel and a quick sense of humor. He knew the most about this cemetery.
Jane, a friend of Alan. At the time, she was a sophomore in college, and a skeptic who claimed she wanted to know more about the paranormal. (I’m not sure if, later, her experiences with us helped her change her mind. At the very least, I hope she learned not to be snarky about ghosts… not in haunted settings, anyway.)
Nancy, a professional photographer, 46-year-old mother of Alice. She was interested in the paranormal and intrigued by my “ghost photos,” but insisted she was not psychic. She was one of my very closest friends.
Alice, then a high school student who reminded us of a delighted “Alice in Wonderland.” She’s psychically gifted.
James, my son, also a high school student. Mostly a skeptic, he noticed “odd” things and always tried to find rational explanations for them. Sometimes, his skepticism irked me, but I’m sure I still annoy him even more often. I love him more than words can say.
THE STORY
When Alan first told me about haunted Gilson Road Cemetery, it sounded intriguing. He’d been there one eerie Halloween night, years ago. Since then he’d heard the haunted history of the site.
I love a good “ghost story,” so this sounded like a great place to explore.
On the afternoon of November 5th, Alan drove Jane and me to the cemetery, about fifteen minutes from my house. The cemetery was small, a little too quiet, and – in 1999 – it was in a very rural location. The oddest thing was, the stone wall surrounding the graveyard was far too large for the sparse number of stones in it.
I later learned that most of the graves in the cemetery aren’t marked.
Alan had heard that a home had been there in Colonial times, and murders had taken place in the home… or at least nearby.
Then the house had burned to the ground.
Local residents decided it was wisest to use the land as a cemetery rather than try building on it again.
The afternoon we visited the Gilson Road Cemetery, the sun was shining. It was an unusually warm afternoon for so late in the year.
We should have had a fun time wandering among the fallen leaves and ancient headstones. It was a lovely setting.
Jane seemed to have the most fun. She joked and laughed happily, reading the very Gothic notes on the headstones. However, her humor became sarcastic and a little too loud as we continued to explore the 18th- and 19th-century headstone. Was she nervous, or just caught up in the moment?
At first, Alan and I went along with Jane’s high spirits. Soon, I felt uncomfortable, and then edgy. Something was very, very wrong about that cemetery, and I could practically grasp the antagonism I began to feel, emanating from the air around me as Jane continued to joke.
I took a few photographs, and we left. I felt very uneasy about the experience, but made excuses to myself. After all, it was a very old cemetery. The odd hole in one headstone seemed kind of creepy; perhaps that had unnerved me more than it should have. Well, that’s what I told myself.
Later that night, six of us returned to the cemetery, to try some night photography.
I had shaken off my earlier uneasiness, and when our group gathered to drive to the cemetery, we were in the mood for a fun evening hike.
I wanted to take some quick photos from the roadside.
(Like many New England cemeteries, Pine Hill is closed from dusk to dawn. I don’t go into cemeteries when they’re closed.)
I carried my “old reliable” 35mm (analog/film) point-and-shoot camera, which I’d used for years. (This was before digital cameras were trustworthy, and long before phones’ cameras were among the very best for photos.)
I’d taken over 100 photos with it during the two weeks before this, and it had worked perfectly. In fact, about half of my photos are taken in low-light conditions using the flash.
On this evening…
the batteries were fresh,
the film was fine, and
there was nothing to jam the camera.
Nothing could go wrong… right?
Well, maybe.
A few (ghostly?) chills…
Since it was Halloween, I felt a little nervous as I approached the pitch dark graveyard. In fact, I shivered, even though the evening was warm.
The cemetery’s scary, haunted reputation didn’t bother me as much as being alone on a very deserted road.
Because Blood Cemetery had closed at dusk, I stood at the side of the road, staring into the eerie darkness. It was as if something wanted my attention… but I didn’t know what.
So, I started taking photos at random, pointing the camera into Blood Cemetery.
(I have no idea why, except that I was there. I mean, I felt like I should do something related to ghost hunting.)
That’s when things went weird
I pushed the button to take a photo.
Click.
Nothing happened. No flash, just the film advancing.
Click again. Still no flash, as I was using up film.
Click. Click. Click.
It took me eleven photos to realize that my flash was not going to work.
Yes, eleven flashless photos of total darkness.
“Great,” I muttered. “Ghostly mischief scores a win.”
Then, to make things worse, the police – who patrol the cemetery regularly at this time of year – arrived and asked me to “move along.”
(My team and I always respect the laws, especially at haunted sites. And, when the police ask us to leave, we do so, immediately.)
Abel Blood’s haunted headstone at Pine Hill Cemetery, Hollis, NH
Something didn’t make sense
Of course, I left, but I kept muttering to myself about my camera. Fresh film, fresh batteries, a good camera… why had it suddenly failed?
For the next few minutes, I went through a checklist in my head. Sure, it was easy to blame it on ghostly mischief.
However, that wasn’t enough for me.
I needed a logical reason why the flash had abruptly stopped working, for eleven photos in a row.
About two miles from the cemetery, I stopped at a red light. Figuring that I had nothing to lose, I picked up my camera and took a quick photo of… well, the car seat.
After all, it was right there.
FLASH!
Yes, the flash was suddenly working again.
Hmm… I wasn’t going to let a camera glitch – or Blood Cemetery – spoil my Halloween ghost hunting.
Challenge accepted!
I drove another ten minutes to another old cemetery. It was “Schoolhouse Cemetery” in Nashua, NH. It’s the early burial ground next to Spit Brook Plaza shopping center.
But, at the time, that burial ground did not have a “haunted” reputation. (With lots of traffic on at least one side, and an apartment complex along one side, it’s not a great research location.)
There, I took another dozen photos to finish the roll of film, and the flash worked fine every time.
Evidence suggests…
Frankly, although it doesn’t feel that odd to me, I may have to accept that Blood Cemetery is, indeed, haunted. Abel Blood’s headstone is just one landmark among several local haunted cemeteries.
(Since writing this article, I’ve heard that Abel Blood’s grave marker has been stolen, perhaps twice. And then returned. If that’s true, I’m not surprised. It would be the gravest mistake – no pun intended – to steal a gravestone with such an eerie reputation.)
I’ve inspected my camera and batteries. Nothing seemed amiss.
Was the problem paranormal? Just a bit of ghost mischief?
Maybe. Even now, I have no reasonable explanation for the abrupt, location-specific failure of my camera.
I know that this sounds like a campfire tale from a Scouting trip. However, it’s what really happened.
I can’t think of a reasonable explanation. Not for eleven photos with a very reliable Olympus camera. The camera had worked fine for years before, and – as I update this story in 2020, over 20 years later – that camera has never failed since.
When you first see Blood Cemetery, it may seem like a quaint New England burial site.
Spend a little time there, and you’ll realize it’s downright eerie… even in broad daylight.
Weird things to look for, at Hollis’ Blood Cemetery
When you visit Blood Cemetery (aka Pine Hill Road Cemetery, Hollis, NH), watch for these things.
Are they actually ghostly…? Maybe not, but they certainly fit the term “paranormal.”
For example, watch the trees. They’ll seem to move, even when there is no breeze. Several of us have noticed this during multiple visits.
If you’re there and you’re not sure if you’re seeing something paranormal, glance outside the cemetery. Then compare the trees’ movement at Blood Cemetery with nearby wooded areas.
When I visited, and in broad daylight, the trees were still (not moving) elsewhere, but the trees inside Blood Cemetery were swaying and/or the leaves fluttering vigorously.
Watch for fog that slowly seems to engulf this cemetery and nowhere nearby, yet the cemetery is near the top of a hill. I’ve heard several independent reports of this, including one from a former policeman.
Then there’s the music people hear. Here’s one story:
A Nashua nurse was in her car with friends, and they were listening to the radio. As they approached the cemetery, static interrupted the music, followed by dirge-like organ music. Shortly after they passed the cemetery, the static returned and then their previous music was restored.
There are natural explanations for this, but it’s a common story in the vicinity of haunted cemeteries in the northeast.
Bu, in this case, the nurse is otherwise very level-headed. She’s very skeptical of paranormal reports. That’s why her tale is worth noting.
Several readers have reported sensing something angry in the cemetery. A few others have seen a lone figure standing in the cemetery after dark.
(I’ve seen this myself. By the time I got to the top of the cemetery, he’d vanished. But, with clear sight on every side, I saw no evidence that he’d walked away.)
A not-ghostly warning
This is frustrating for serious ghost hunters: The Hollis police are rumored to play pranks on people near Blood Cemetery at night, to discourage visitors and vandals.
According to one police officer, they cover themselves with ghostly sheets, and hide behind the headstones. When someone enters the cemetery, the police leap up, shouting, and chase the trespassers out.
Nevertheless, we doubt that anyone’s out there with a fog machine, a wind machine, or broadcasting dirges on the radio.
Despite many years of ghost hunting, I still enjoy visiting Blood Cemetery (aka Pine Hill Cemetery) in Hollis, NH.
It’s an isolated spot with more than its share of ghost stories, and I like it there.
Well, I used to like it there…
Here’s a true ghost story from Blood Cemetery
The evening before Halloween night in 1999, the sunset was magnificent. It was a warm evening, and a fine time for some photos at Blood Cemetery.
Since this ancient New England cemetery is on a hill, its headstones can look magnificent — or eerie — against a colorful sky.
Everything was fine until I was about halfway through my roll of film. (Remember, this was 1999, before digital cameras were reliable, and long before phones included cameras.)
The light was starting to fade, and my attention was drawn to an area just east of the Farley family graves.
Looking through my camera’s viewfinder, I was dismayed to see something grey-ish move between me and one of the headstones. It had very fuzzy edges, and it was the same color as the headstone.
“Oh. Great,” I sighed. “It’s a cat.”
I waited for it to move out of the way so that I could take more photographs.
Then, as I watched, the “cat” vanished into the headstone.
I nearly dropped my camera.
Really. It vanished. It took about half a second for the image to completely disappear.
It went into one of those half-tall headstones at Blood Cemetery. (It was not a child’s marker, as I discovered when I returned on November 1st.)
The grave is near the center of the cemetery. There is no way an animal could leave that graveyard without being seen, even at dusk.
The cemetery isn’t that large, and a wide grassy area surrounds the headstones.
Plus that, the stone that it vanished into is one of the smaller stones in Blood Cemetery. There wasn’t any place for an animal to hide.
(I looked, just in case. I really wanted a reasonable, logical, normal explanation.)
I saw the remains of a faerie ring a few feet away, but that’s all.
Over 15 years later, I still ask myself: Why did I think it was a cat?
Why it wasn’t an actual, living cat
Sure, Blood Cemetery seems to have more than its fair share of cats.
But what I saw would have been a small ghost, but a very large cat. The furry shape was about 2 1/2 feet tall, and I’m not certain how wide.
It was big. It was very fuzzy around the edges, which — from a logical (perhaps skeptical) viewpoint — suggested a massive Angora-type cat that had just been rolling in the dust so his fur was standing up.
It was too “fluffy” (fuzzy-edged) to be a dog.
And, it was far too large for any other kind of grey-colored field or domestic animal.
Too late, I realized that I’d seen… a ghost?
I don’t know. Maybe.
What else could it have been?
But I took a few photos anyway, just in case. (They didn’t reveal anything startling.)
Since then, I’ve promised myself that I will never not take a photo, when something unexpected shows up at a cemetery or any haunted site.
But, about 24 hours later, at that same Blood Cemetery location, my Halloween night experience was even stranger. If it was a ghost, it was a quirky one.
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.
Betsy Blood Thompson’s death certificate
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.
(Simulation of what others have reported seeing. The image on the right side isn’t an actual photo.)
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:
