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.
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.
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.
On November 1, 1999, I returned to Blood Cemetery in Hollis. I planned to take a few more photos, although I hadn’t captured any anomalies since my earliest visits to the cemetery.
The stone belonged to Eldridge Jewett, b. April 28, 1856, d. April 2, 1924.
At the top of his headstone, there were the three links of a chain, which usually signify someone who was a member of the Masonic Lodge, or a similar men’s organization.
However, the stone next to this one caught my attention:
On an earlier to Blood Cemetery, I’d noticed that a small headstone had been knocked over. I’d picked it up, hoping to find a way to prop it up. However, when I saw the swarming maggots in the soil beneath it, my stomach lurched and I’d dropped the headstone.
I can recall commenting to my daughter, “Poor little thing,” as I felt sorry for the grave… but not sorry enough to look at those insects again.
When I was at Blood Cemetery on November 1st (1999), I saw that someone else had picked up the headstone, too. This time, the stone was flat on the ground, but with the inscription facing upwards so I could read it: It was the son of Eldridge Jewett, who lived a mere six months from May 1870 to November 1870. He’s described only as the “Son of Eldridge and Clara L. Jewett.”
However, someone had stuck an American flag in his grave.
Many graves in this cemetery have American flags, and they indicate where a veteran is buried.
However, the baby who’d been buried here certainly wasn’t a veteran, and the dates on his father’s headstone (which had no flag) suggested that Eldridge Jewett may have served in World War I.
I moved the flag from the child’s grave to his father’s plot, a few feet away.
When I returned home, I checked the photographs from the day I thought I saw a cat (or a ghost) vanish into the senior Jewett’s headstone.
Sure enough, the American flag had been at the child’s grave then, too.
If I did see a ghost, it seems likely that someone from “the other side” wanted to catch my attention. I hope they merely wanted me to move the flag back to its correct location.
Perhaps some ghosts visit our world because they have a very small task to complete. Observant people can help them by paying attention to “odd” things that happen; one of them may be a ghost trying to get your attention.
As I review this several years later, I still believe that Eldridge Jewett wanted the flag moved to its correct location.
By now, most people know what’s fact and fiction in the 1999 movie, The Blair Witch Project.
The Blair Witch.. didn’t impress me. Here’s what did.
Frankly, as an actual ghost hunter, the movie didn’t impress me. Sure, The Blair Witch Project was stylish in its own way, but a lot of it didn’t make sense to me.
I mean, in that era, only idiots went camping without a map they could easily read, and a hiking compass, and…
Okay, that’s the tip of the iceberg. I won’t even mention the ending, which made no sense and had no real context.
Despite that, I felt drawn to the location where it was filmed: Burkittsville, Maryland.
There was a certain vibe… an odd energy that seemed to lurk beneath some scenes in the Blair Witch film.
Even today, few seem know the actual haunted history of Burkittsville.
It has layers and layers of paranormal and unexplained phenomena, going back centuries.
The tension may have started with a feud.
The town began as “Dawson’s Purchase” in 1741. In the 1790’s, Joshua Harley and Henry Burkitt arrived in the area. From the start, they competed to control and eventually name the town.
Although Burkitt owned three-quarters of the land by 1810, the competition seemed concluded in 1824 when Harley secured the official Post Office as “Harley’s Post Office.”
However, Joshua Harley’s death in 1828 left Burkitt with the last word. He named the town Burkittsville before he, too, died in 1836.
The participants in this 40+ year rivalry may haunt the town, but there are far better explanations for Burkittsville’s ghostly spirits.
In fact, paranormal events and tragedy cover more than 100 years of Burkittsville’s history.
Even earlier, a genuine monster was reported nearby. And, according to reports, it’s still there.
As early as 1735, nearby Middletown was settled by German immigrants.
According to legends repeated in the Middletown Valley Register in the early 20th century, the community was terrorized by a monster called a Schnellegeister.
The word means “fast spirit or ghost” in German, but neighbors nicknamed it the “Snallygaster.”
Whatever its name, its colonial reputation mixed the half-bird features of the Siren with the nightmarish features of demons and ghouls.
The Snallygaster was described as half-reptile with octopus limbs, and half-bird with a metallic beak lined with razor-sharp teeth. It can fly. It can pick up its victims and carry them off. The earliest stories claim that this monster sucked the blood of its victims.
It is disturbingly similar to the movie’s descriptions of the Blair Witch.
No one knows whether the Snallygaster caused the hasty sale of most of “Dawson’s Purchase” (later Burkittsville) in 1786, and the remainder in 1803.
However, George Wine, who bought the final acreage, did not live to confirm the purchase. His death may be part of the story.
The name “Snallygaster” was a joke to some in the 20th century, but the monster been documented in the Burkittsville area as recently as 1973.
Another 18th century German settlement, Zittlestown, a mere seven miles north of Burkittsville, was also plagued with supernatural events.
Like Middletown, residents feared a large and vicious animal-spirit which was rarely seen.
An 1880’s book by anti-suffragist Madaleine Vinton Dahlgren (widow of Admiral John A. Dahlgren), documented the troubles of that community.
That’s ample evidence that something terrifying lurked in the Burkittsville area. It was certainly an ideal location for the Blair Witch Project.
However, most of Burkittsville’s actual ghosts are men who lost their lives in the Civil War.
Learn those stories, from an unscrupulous Civil War gravedigger, to spectres of the dead who push cars uphill today, in The Real ‘Blair Witch’ Ghosts – Part Two.
Where the “Blair Witch Project” was filmed has all of those from Civil War times.
By 1862, wounded and dying Civil War soldiers in this area were placed in as many as 17 makeshift hospitals. Some of those “hospitals” were actually Burkittsville homes and businesses, including the town’s tannery.
Those soldiers’ ghostly voices are still heard throughout the town.
… But the site of Burkittsville’s tannery may be the most haunted.
The tannery was torn down, but the site is still haunted.
Anyone who parks his car there overnight may find the vehicle marked with footprints from soldiers’ boots, where the car was kicked or even trampled by the ghosts of marching men.
But there are other ghosts in the area, too.
Stories — loudly proclaimed as “fiction” by some Burkittsville historians — explain why the area may be haunted.
In one account, the retreating Confederate Army paid a man named Wise to bury approximately 50 bodies.
Mr. Wise accepted the money.
… But then he tossed the bodies in an abandoned well.
Shortly thereafter, he began seeing the ghost of Sergeant Jim Tabbs of Virginia, who complained to Mr. Wise about being uncomfortable.
Mr. Wise returned to the mass grave and discovered that the body on top was that of Sergeant Tabbs, and the corpse was face down. Mr. Wise turned the body so it was facing upwards.
He thought that would be the last of it.
He was very wrong.
Perhaps the spirits of these men revealed the truth to the local officials. Whatever the cause, the authorities confronted Mr. Wise. They forced him to dig up–and properly bury–the fifty bodies that had been left in his care.
Stories say the ghosts never bothered him again, but did they truly rest in peace?
Many other fallen Southern soldiers were left behind as a necessity of war. The good people of Burkittsville recognized that something must be done for the dead, so they buried them in shallow graves. The local residents expected that, once the fighting stopped, the troops would return to bury the men properly.
When the fighting stopped, no one returned for these comrades’ bodies. Finally most — and perhaps all — of the bodies temporarily buried in the older section of Burkittsville’s Union Cemetery, were exhumed in 1868 and re-interred in Washington Confederate Cemetery.
Was this sufficient to put their souls at rest? According to Troy Taylor in his book, Spirits of the Civil War, there have been odd and ghostly occurrences in the vicinity of those shallow graves. Many nights since then, eerie lights from long-extinguished campfires appear in the nearby open fields, and dot the mountainside.
However, the mountainside is also the source of a ghostly energy that visitors to Burkittsville can experience even now. Its history is one of the great stories of the Civil War.
At sunrise on Sunday, September 14, 1862, both the Union and Confederate soldiers expected to surprise each other with an attack. It was later known as the Battle for Crampton’s Gap, but the location is now called “Spook Hill.”
On that fateful morning, the Union soldiers carried only rifles into battle. They were able to travel faster than their Confederate counterparts, who were still pushing cannons uphill when the fighting began. The Union Army’s First Division, Sixth Corps, were overwhelmingly successful in battle.
Many Confederate soldiers died struggling with the heavy cannons. Their lingering spirits are the “spooks” of Spook Hill.
The site of this battle can be found at the edge of Burkittsville, near the Civil War Correspondents’ Memorial Arch, in Gathland Park. If you stop your car at Spook Hill and set it in neutral, you will feel the car being pushed by the spectral hands of the Confederate troops.
They are still struggling to push their cannons to the top of the hill, and achieve victory in the battle which they lost over 130 years ago.
In public, Burkittsville residents claim that this is merely an optical illusion. However, a local resident, Stephen, quietly assures me that the road has been tested using construction levels and transits. Cars do indeed roll uphill, though not as readily as they did before the road was recently repaved.
Others insist that the hill is magnetic, and that force is what pulls the cars towards the top. No one has successfully tested that theory yet.
If Spook Hill contains massive amounts of a magnetic ore, this would explain why Heather’s compass did not work properly in the movie, The Blair Witch Project.
Nevertheless, with ghostly campfires, bodies in dry wells and shallow graves, footprints at the former tannery/hospital, and the events at Spook Hill, the tale of what happened to three college students in The Blair Witch Project seems almost pale by comparison to real life.
For more information about haunted Burkittsville and vicinity, ask your local library for these books and videos:
iers’ boots, where the car was kicked or even trampled by the ghosts of marching men.
Others insist that the hill is magnetic, and that force is what pulls the cars towards the top. No one has successfully tested that theory yet.