Oh my god, it’s a Christmas miracle. I finally kept one of my promises! If you read last month’s article, you heard all about my plan to follow a lead up to Thomaston, CT to check out some weird stuff at their town cemetery. The deed is done and documented! We’ve got audio, we’ve got video and we’ve got pictures to prove we were there. Prepare yourselves for the tale of Thomaston’s Hillside Cemetery.
It was a fine Sunday afternoon when I departed Bridgeport with Sidekick Nick, my new paranormal partner, and headed up Route 8 towards our destination. Things got exciting as soon as we pulled into the cemetery entrance and noticed a trail to our left that was labeled “Ancient Cemetery” with a sign hanging from the trees. We drove up a bit further to park the car, gathered our gear and headed straight for the path into the woods. The sign that hangs above the path reads “Ancient Cemetery 1742-1869”. A short walk into the woods reveals a rag-tag arrangement of gravestones that almost look as if they sprouted up among the brush in the last 300 years. Sitting in a hidden, overgrown area and slowly falling apart, these New England relics are a polar opposite of the perfectly manicured Hillside Cemetery that lies further up the hill. Someone needs to clean up the place; it’s just damn disrespectful.
Speaking of disrespect, here’s the story behind the “Ancient Cemetery”. Apparently, these stones were once part of the oldest town cemetery that was located further down the road. In the mid 1800s, they built a new town hall on top of the land the cemetery occupied. The stones were relocated to their current home, but the bodies were left in the original plots. Ever since then, they have been coming up out of the ground around town hall, angry and hungry for brains. Seriously though, they do pop up out of the ground every once in a while, especially if there is construction going on.
We decided to cut our own path up the steep hill through the woods, figuring we’d come out right at the top of Hillside Cemetery. As we approached the top, we noticed a crypt carved right into the side of the hill. All alone and randomly placed, the crypt was sealed up with bricks and covered with graffiti. Some inbred jackass spray-painted a swastika and some racial slurs on it. I decided to take some audio, holding the mic up to the walled up entrance and asking how they felt about having their grave covered in graffiti. Back home, when I reviewed the tape, a grunt can be heard immediately following my question. I know I didn’t make that noise, and Sidekick Nick was too far away for his voice to be picked up that clearly. Obviously the spirit residing in the crypt is a little upset. Well, I certainly hope he haunts the crap out of those redneck racist bastards.
Back to the main part of Hillside Cemetery, we discovered the pond that would supposedly lead us to the gallows and the boarded up well. Heading over a small bridge and angling our way up the hill into the woods, we soon found the spot at the top of a ledge overlooking a steep slope down to the town. We were definitely excited as hell to find it, although it wasn’t much to look at. A few stairs and the platform are all that remains of the gallows. Standing on that platform, I felt a wave of energy rushing through my body, like I had just downed 10 Red Bulls. It was giving me some really intense vibes, man. Sidekick Nick hopped up and got a similar feeling. We had a brief conversation about how many people died there and furthermore, how many innocents died there. When I played back the audio, I heard the sounds of children laughing in the background during our discussion. Now, I know for DAMN sure that we didn’t hear anything like that when we were up there. In fact, if I had heard any voices at all, I would have remembered it because I was cautious about trespassing up there. Also, the sound only appeared on my digital audio recorder; there was nothing but our conversation on the audio from the video camera. If that was an actual sound, it would have been picked up by both devices. Damn creepy.
Down the hill from the gallows, we found the boarded up well. It was not quite what I was expecting. Don’t get me wrong, it was still pretty interesting. The old foundation was a long rectangle, instead of your usual circular well. There was a roof that looks like it was recently built to cover the well. Either side was sealed with wire netting to specifically prevent us from getting in there. Those bastards… Staring in through the wire, it looked as if the well was split into two separate parts. On one side, there were some old, green pipes that had corroded and melted apart long ago. I couldn’t make out the bottom on the other side, leading us to believe that perhaps there was once a circular well there that went much further down. The new rectangular foundation could have been built right around it. Although the entire construct was pretty weird to see, I didn’t really get any bad feelings coming from the well. If you remember, the person who had told me about this place had gotten some seriously negative vibes; enough to make him take off in a hurry. Perhaps I was just there on an off-day.
Having completed all our tasks, we wandered. Following a small trail up the hill into the woods, we came across a small metal sign nailed to a tree with a single arrow pointing straight down. Next to the tree, we found a very old arrangement of stones. It was a rectangle, roughly 3 feet across and 2 stones high. The front side of stones was missing and there was a rusted up grate covering the center and leaning up against the rear wall. We removed the grate and found the dirt in the center of the arrangement to be extremely soft and loose. What the hell was this? A network of roots impeded further digging. I have no idea what that was, but it was pretty damn weird.
We wandered the cemetery a bit, found some amazing headstones and came across a second, much larger pond with a cliff above it. Could there be a second site with gallows and boarded up wells? However unlikely, we decided to climb regardless. Reaching the top was no easy task and offered no further ghostbusting treasures. Still, we did get rewarded with an amazing view of the town and surrounding valley. I’ll take what I can get. Finished for the day, we headed home.
Hillside Cemetery left us with a lot of questions. While we got some really strange audio, nothing showed up in the photos or on video. Also, I didn’t get a single spike on the ga-ga meter (EMF detector). Granted, I didn’t have it on the entire time because my hands were full juggling all these gadgets. Maybe I just missed the activity. While the lack of photos and ga-ga readings leaves me doubtful, I can’t dismiss the audio, especially the sounds of kids laughing and playing. Listening to that alone at my house that night was damn creepy, and ghostbusters don’t creep easily. I think another trip up there is definitely in order. I won’t be satisfied until I have some pictures for my scrapbook. Don’t laugh; ghostbusters are a sentimental bunch. 
   
Be safe, and happy hunting. Chris the Ghostbuster can be reached at “mailto:eblues31@aol.com” eblues31@aol.com.