The Marietta City Cemetery was first established in the 1830’s. Those that are buried here show a true cross section of the people that lived here regardless of race and religion. Those here include mayors, judges, a U.S. Senator, men, women, children, soldiers and slaves. It may be this diversity that makes this cemetery one of the most haunted places in America.

The first known marked grave was dug on a hill side in the early 1830’s, a time when the Cherokee Indians still lived in areas around the county. Unfortunately this grave was built for a 8-year-old child. The son of a wealthy planer in the area, William Capers G. Harris only lived a short time but left for anyone who comes to visit a very powerful message on his headstone, “As you pass by, so once did I.”

There are many interesting stories that can be told about the Marietta City Cemetery such as this touching one about the “Lady in Black.” Lucy Gartrell erected a 15 foot tall marble statue in honor of her sister, Mary Annie Gartrell. Lucy is said to have visited her sister’s grave twice a week for 46 years. She always visited wearing black mourning clothes and thus became known as the “Lady in Black” by those that saw her.

If you can step back in time, to a different era and different outlook on what reality was, the Old Slave Lot may represent the spirit of the community better than anything. This is one of the largest single plots in the cemetery and no other major cemetery Georgia at that time had a lot devoted to slaves or even free slaves.

According to research, this information about the slave lot and its occupants making it through the Civil War can be attributed to the City Clerk for the City of Marietta. This clerk, Robert E. Lawhorn, a Confederate Veteran, managed to save all the records and keep all the information intact.

The Confederate Cemetery began in 1863 and sits adjacent to the old city cemetery. Mrs. Jane Glover donated a corner of her Bushy Park Plantation to bury 20 confederate soldiers who perished in a train wreck north of Marietta. There was another expansion in July 1864 after the Kennesaw Mountain Battle but the greatest expansion was left for after the war.

In 1866, Georgia lawmakers approved $3,500 to collect the remains of Confederate soldiers who perished in Georgia and return them to be buried in Marietta. Thanks to the efforts of Catherine Winn of the Ladies’ Aid Society and Mary Green of the Georgia Memorial Association who lead the recovery effort, 3000 soldiers representing every Confederate State are now buried in the cemetery.

Ghosts have been reported in these cemeteries as early as 1895. These first reports come from a city sexton named Sanford Gorham. He reports that while he was working a man in black watched him from an open area and as he approached the man to see if he needed anything, he vanished. Years later, Gorham reported another vanishing person in black but this time it was a woman standing beside a fresh grave.

A lot of the paranormal activity is contributed to the many soldiers buried there as well. Reports of seeing fully uniformed soldiers walking around at night are common as well as hearing drums, marching and occasionally musket fire.

There has also been numerous EVP’s (electronic voice phenomenon) captured around the two cemeteries as well. We were fortunate enough to be able to walk through this fantastic cemetery and here you can see some of our pictures from our visit. We unfortunately were constrained on time but will try to get back and see if we can get some of our own EVP’s from there as well. If you visit there please respect that the cemetery as it is closed at night.

Most Haunted Places in America: Burlington Cemetery

The Burlington Cemetery is a very old burial ground dating back to the 1700’s, located in New Britain, Connecticut; present day Burlington. The cemetery is known by several names, including Burlington Cemetery, Seventh Day Baptist Cemetery and its most famous label, Green Lady Cemetery.

The proper name is Seventh Day Baptist Cemetery, the name given upon its inception on September 18, 1780 by the “Sabbatarians” of the Seventh Day Baptist Church. Green Lady Cemetery caught on quickly due to the innumerable sightings of the “Green Lady” ghost that Burlington Cemetery is so notorious for. The name Burlington Cemetery is simply practical, being one of the only two active cemeteries in Burlington, CT.

The Green Lady of Burlington Cemetery has been making appearances in the graveyard for more than 100 years now. The most significant thing about this ghost is that there really is nothing significant about it. She appears in a green mist with undeniably human contour. She facial features are clear enough to be feminine, and she seems incredibly solemn and happy, with a perpetual smile on her face.

The Green Lady is not menacing or harmful. She never manifests herself in a threatening way. She shows no signs of how she died – no sickly wounds or bloody trails, as pertain to so many ghost stories. In fact, the Green Lady of Burlington Cemetery is often called the most boring ghost in the United States.

It is for this reason that you may hear some much more intriguing stories when you ask around the Burlington area. Mostly the local youths have a lot more to say, embellishing the truth to make a frightening legend out of simple folklore.

The widely accepted story is that the Green Lady is the ghost of Elisabeth Palmiter, one of the Seventh Day Baptists that migrated to New Britain (now Burlington) to establish the church and cemetery. Before we detail her death, let’s go over a little interesting background on the Seventh Day Baptists.

The current locals weren’t too pleased with the settlement of so many religious neighbors. One after another, accidents seemed to be picking off the newcomers. One was accidently hung while fixing a lamp; another died when a tree fell on him in the woods; one died when a recently finished well collapse on top of him; yet another fell from a ladder while repairing his roof. Could they all be coincidence? Yes, of course they could. But they could also have been the underhanded intimidation of the locals trying to bully the Baptists into leaving – and leave they did. The remaining members left for Brookfield, New York in 1820.

Back to the story of Elisabeth Palmiter, the suspected Green Lady of Burlington Cemetery; the legend says she died in April of 1800, drowning in a swamp near her home. There are several accounts of how she ended up in the swamp, all involving her husband Benjamin.

The most popular says he went into town for supplies and decided to stay overnight due to a terrible blizzard. When he did not return, she went out searching for him and got lost. Another story says Benjamin did return but she was missing. An exhausting search ended with her body being found frozen in the swamp. Yet another story says Benjamin was actually responsible for her death, drowning her in the swamp, or simply refusing to save her from the swamp before she drowned.

No one really knows what happened, or if the Green Lady really is the ghost of Elisabeth Palmiter. But we do know is that a green, misty apparition appears, smiles upon her onlookers and dissipates on a regular basis in and around Burlington Cemetery. It has been reported in similar fashion far too many times to be discounted as a mere fairy tale.

Most Haunted Places in America: Ada Cemetery

In Ada, Michigan, a civil township near Grand Rapids, lies an old burial ground known as Ada Cemetery. It’s just a normal cemetery, like any other small town graveyard, except for one tiny detail. Ada Cemetery is haunted by the Ada Witch.

It’s not exactly certain how the folklore tellers came up with the term “Ada Witch”. The ghost in question did not practice black magic or anything of that sort, at least not that anyone knows of. She was merely a local woman with a bad habit – a habit of secretly cheating on her husband late at night with her lover.

On one such night, estimated to be around the turn of the 20th century by her spectral attire – a long flowing white gown – she snuck out of the house to meet with her lover in the nearby woodland area. Apparently this deception had been going on for some time; long enough for her husband to become suspicious of her late night activities.

On this night, unbeknownst to the adulteress woman, her husband followed her into the woods. To his horror, but not entirely unsuspected, he witness the embrace of his wife and her lover. In a mad rage, he tore through the rest of the field, closing on his wife. He viciously murdered her before turning his brutal attentions to her lover.

Murdering him would not prove nearly as easy as his wife. The two struggled and fought, neither able to take the upper hand throughout the brief altercation. In the end, neither would make it out alive. Both men died of their own sustained injuries.

Ever since, the apparitional ghost of the woman has been reported, mostly within a 3 mile radius of the Ada Cemetery, located on 2 Mile Road in between Honey Creek Road and Egypt Valley. Strangely, not all of the reports are the same.

Some have described the Ada Witch as being a beautiful, brunette lady in a white dress. Some say this lovely apparition appears to be searching for something, perhaps her murdered lover. The Ada Witch is generally seen alone in the woods, and some say they had attempted to interact with her, only to have her disappear into a fine mist, or run into the thickest part of the brambles where pursuit is virtually impossible.

A few have seen the ghost of Ada Cemetery in a much less glorious light. Her ghost may appear as the brutally mutilated corpse that was left behind by at her husband’s hands.

Other common reports of the Ada Cemetery haunting are accompanied with claims of hearing the husband’s angry shouts, followed by the screams of his wife as she was brutally slain. On rare occasions, reports have come in by onlookers claiming to see a ghastly, spectral re-enactment of the entire gruesome scene.

The Ada Witch is most often seen on Honey Creek Road, where her body was found so many years ago, though other claims pin-point the ghost to appear in Findlay Cemetery, where she is believed to have been laid to rest, as well as nearby Seidman Park.