Cemeteries
As a
ghost researcher I get the occasional request from one of my members to do a
cemetery that is supposedly haunted. I usually take the request with a grain of
salt and mull it over. I’ve done these places before and sometime with great results
and some with nothing but wasted time. Considering that practically no one dies
in a cemetery, unless the occasional heart attack or mob hit, I tend to dismiss
some of the claims. It is also one of the hardest places to get permission from
the property owners to do so.
In Fort
Lauderdale, we have a couple of haunted cemeteries. Most of them are haunted
due to disrespect of the graves or the people buried there. For my book
“Haunted Fort Lauderdale”, I gave one of them a chapter in my book, but our
group never did an investigation at this location. This is the second cemetery
in town after they moved the bodies of the old location out to this new plot of
land, which was a foreclosed farmers plot. The first grounds were in the back
of a church and they wanted to expand the site to have a school located in the
location of the grave area.
I told the story of 15 victims of
the hurricane of September 18th, 1926. This is backed up by a sign
in the cemetery giving them knowledge, but obviously it wasn’t enough to sooth
the souls of that tragic day. They all were buried in a Pauper’s
grave that the city purchased. These people were never claimed by
family members and their ID’s and some their clothes were stripped from their
lifeless bodies. These men, women and
children were sewn up in canvas and piled up, and then lye was thrown on top
before the shovels of dirt were in place. Upon interviewing the City, they
claim they didn’t know which plot they were put in due to information being
lost in later tragic hurricanes and floods. They also claim they gave some of
the information to the city of Miami to keep till some of the buildings were
repaired for the record keeping and subsequently lost by Miami. They did give
me one piece of information that was helpful. The grave is somewhere between
the Jewish section and the Baby section of the cemetery.
My next
interviews were people who lived in the neighborhood that had dealings with the
ghost that lie within the cast iron gates. Many say that upon walking their
dogs at night, they would stop and their pet would bark at the same location
given to me by the city officials. There
are some that say if they walk their pet in the early morning they would see
ghostly mist from that same location. Others exclaim they seen ghosts of women,
men and children walking around the same area in period clothes of the 20’s.
Ghostly children playing hide and seek amongst the gravestones, laughing and
giggling as the passerby would get a glimpse of them.
There is
one man who devoted a website, which seems to have disappeared as ghostly as a
spirit in a cemetery, to the “Woman in Grey”. A ghostly apparition of a woman
in grey shroud that haunted in front of the crypt of a well known family plot
of a billionaire that is still alive in Fort Lauderdale. This man would have
his young children over the fence of this cemetery to take pictures in the
closed sacred grounds, only to post these pictures on his website. The website was online for a couple of years,
but the pictures were quite unusual. One I still remember today was a mist form
of what it looked like a lady in a shroud with her arms held out in a beckoning
to pose. The website is now no more and I wish I took copies of the photos.
My last
interview was with the police to see what their take was about these reports.
They did say they would get calls about somebody on the grounds from those who
live across from the old burial grounds.
They would go to find out what is actually happening, only to find
nothing. They also said that if there was a robbery in the neighborhood that
the site would be a hiding area for these thieves. Since then, every report of
a robbery they would check the cemetery first for suspects. None of the
officers said they found, seen or thought they’ve seen ghostly apparitions.
The
second cemetery that claims a haunt is in a low income area. This cemetery
known as the “Black Cemetery”, which I would like to change that to the
Afro-American burial grounds, this is one of the smallest in town. You see, in
the 1890’s when the first burial ground was created, which now has been moved
to a where it is today, they didn’t allow African Americans to be buried there.
The city did purchase a small plot and sold it to be a graveyard for these poor
souls to find their final resting place.
Well,
this poor graveyard has been overused by the plot owners. There are bodies on
top of other family members in these small crypts. It’s also been known that
murder victims have been put into some of the crypts, hoping that they will not
be noticed. It became so run down due to the plot members and its owner of the
property for not taking care of the land. The city has now taken over the piece
of land, fixed the broken seals of the crypts, re-erected the grave stones and
remove the excess growth of the weeds and other foliage that hid many of the
graves.
Now for
this spot, I can believe that the haunting is due to the disrespect of those
buried there. Reports of shadow people in the memorial park has been noted and
called in by police. The neighborhood is more vigilant in patrolling the area. Many believe that some
of the shadow people are grave robbers. These robbers aren’t looking for gold
or jewelry, they are looking for skulls. Often used in Voodoo dark arts and
sold to priest and priestesses for their rituals. There are some reports of ghostly sighting
which is the same as others. These ghosts sometimes peering behind gravestones
and crypts on seldom occasions, yet enough that stories to go out onto the
neighborhood. Nothing with evil intent or malice in mind from their glares but
yet beckoning to be recognized by the living.
Upon
interviewing for this burial ground, I found nobody from the neighborhood who wanted to talk to me
about what these rumors are about. Maybe
because I’m a white man trying to get some information or maybe they really
don’t want to talk about it. I give them respect and move on. Most of the
reports are from off duty police officers that patrol the area and the phone
calls they get about the graveyard.
Remember,
as a ghost researcher and author/journalist it’s my duty to find out reasons
the background history of these places. I feel that this is a missing piece of
many paranormal investigation groups out there. Ready to jump into the haunted
area without doing research on where, what and who the haunt is about.
Are you ready to go into a cemetery to do an investigation
on a haunting? Notice that I didn’t give any names of these burial grounds.
This is due to I don’t want these places to be inundated with ghost hunters. Please remember, if you want to do
research in any cemetery, you must get permission to do so. It’s all about
respect people.
