Ghosts in my Belfry

A wee bit of background is necessary in this story or you might just get the idea at I am a bit whacked, which I am not. Old but not yet whackey. My wife would have something different to say about that, I think. Last year I wrote an article about our cemetery being haunted or not and you might want to revisit the posting. My wife and I are cemetery superintendents and live across the street from the cemetery. Both of us are very skeptical when it comes to ghost stories and haunting. We have our share of Wikens and Warlocks that visit our cemetery on a frequent basis and all claim the cemetery is haunted. I don't think so but...

Our house was built in 1830, or there about, and is a two story. The house is actually made up of an original house and two more houses that were added by being moved in and attached. Hardly any rooms have the same heights for floors and ceilings as a result. One of the move-in houses came from the same street as David the Ghost's house, mentioned below.

We have several people buried in the cemetery that are reportedly haunting the homes in which they died. That must mean they are not haunting our cemetery. A few years ago I was the Maintenance Supervisor for a large area company and one of my buildings was a beautiful, turn-of-the-century old mansion. It was owned by a very prominent family and we have lots of plots in the cemetery that holds them and their relations, including one that holds David who committed suicide. David was a third generation member living in the family estate and was basically alone in the home. He was also broke, as the story goes. One night David crawled into the upstairs bathtub and slit his wrists. A housekeeper found him the next day. Supposedly, David's body went to Pine Hill Cemetery but his spirit stayed at the house, roaming the halls and rooms, always looking for something. On at least 20 occasions, young women reported, to me, the difficulties that they were having with David's ghost. Lights were turned on and off, doors were left open or closed, and on occasion, David could be seen rocking in a chair in the cupola. One night we had a security problem with one of our locked rooms and I was notified of the problem. The office had been trashed, files thrown everywhere, and the desktop had been wiped clean. I found out that one of our Engineers had been in the office a few hours earlier. When I confronted him he admitted unlocking the office but when he found it trashed he simply locked it back up and returned to his office. I asked him why he didn't report it and he replied, "Because David did it". The next morning I had the young engineer, his boss David and another person in the office trying to sort it all out. I told them that this was a very serious event that had occurred and I told David that his young Engineer had implicated him and did he have anything to say. After several pregnant seconds, the young Engineer blurted out " not this David, the ghost David did it"! Foolish me. I went into a tirade and was very disrespectful to young Engineers and to ghosts.

Little did I know that David would eventually come to my house and haunt it. I'm trying to show him the way to his grave but I don't seem to know how to do that. It appears that I am the only person that sees these apparitions and when I mention to my wife that I just saw someone walk into the parlor or saw a car go by our window she always replies "Of course you did dear". The apparition never stops and visits but it is always later in the evening when I experience this phenomenon. I don’t really know if it is David or just another run-of-the-mill ghost because we never talk. May be there is something wrong with my eyes and I should go see an eye Doc. I am just assuming that the specter is David. The only way that I know how to get David to where he belongs is to hold a séance. Hmmm…

Haunted...Westfield's Cemetery?

"Westfield - Pine Hill Cemetery - Something haunts the back hill of this cemetery. During the day visitors have reported a mans voice in the woods, and the feeling of being watched. At night, the watchful feeling changes to one of absolute unreasonable terror. Even going on the public street that runs right beside the hill will cause this...even some people who live on that street have complained of feeling uneasy, as if something is watching out for that portion of the cemetery and will not tolerate ANYONE trespassing. A few reports of rocks being thrown at cars passing that area have also surfaced, but are rare."
I live in Westfield MA, last night around one, my friend and I were driving by the cemetery. We had both read this a few months prior, so we thought we'd check it out for ourselves. We walked in the opening to the far left side and made our way toward the back of the cemetery. About the third or fourth path you can take into the cemetery we took to look at this huge tombstone that caught our attention toward the center. Not five steps past that grave, my feet froze to the ground and a wave of utter uneasiness came over me. My heart jumped and I looked at my friend. He was looking back at me and said he felt cold and his arms were numb. We didn't stay long to investigate, we kind of felt like we were being shoved out extremely unwanted. both of us were numb but it was a beautiful night. this feeling stayed with us until we got off of the main road and into our car. When I opened the door I swear I saw someone walking along the fence but when I looked again it was gone.

This is a story I found on the shadow lands website http://theshadowlands.net/ghost/ghost348.html. Found it interesting but totally untrue as no one has ever told us about experiencing “unreasonable terror” while they visited and never a report about someone throwing rocks at cars. We have a couple of Wickens for friends and they has been very involved with the cemetery, including one who has worked for us on several occasions. They has passed on a few stories of their own. One of those stories surround an area in a corner called the steps that a ghost named Tom inhabits and he is very mischievous. Another tale surrounds a large monument that makes you feel better if you hug one of the pillars. We have found the remnants of séances being held in the cemetery such as ouija boards and candles. Probably just kids that have managed to scare themselves.

I have had a phone call from a lady who told me that her husband is buried in Pine Hill and there is a lady that is buried in a plot next to him and is trying to get into his grave. She wanted me to do something about it. I told her I would work on chasing her off?? Another phone call was from a lady whose husband was dead and buried in our cemetery and he is always coming back to her house. When he was alive they had a priest that lived with them but he died shortly after her husband. The priest also comes back to the house. Neither one of them talk to her but she knows they are there because she can hear them arguing. I told her I didn’t know what I could do but when she told me she was a Catholic I suggested she contact her priest and see about getting an exorcism of the house. I guess it solved her problems. I borrow the picture on the right from the following blog. Hope they don't mind. http://mazurland.typepad.com/myweblog/2005/09/exorcism.html

The nature of the jobs is that I spend a lot of time in the cemetery after dark.[yuh- ha -ha –ha]. Locking gates after nightfall is the main reason[oh-we-yuh]. Halloween night we spend a couple of hours patrolling for vandals and sometimes there are incidents that need to be investigated such as: campfires; strange happenings reported by neighbors; lovers being located inside. It really isn’t very spooky except for the lights. We have a major street that goes by on one side and the lights go dancing off the stones. For years I noticed one stone, up high in the cemetery that was orange in color and only glowed about once a month or so. I was about ready to throw in the towel and admit that some things can’t be explained. That would be major for me as I absolutely do not believe in the occult. Finally I realized it only occurred during full moons. The moon had to be in the right position for me to see it and a big black stone that was slightly tilted backward was reflecting it. Whew!

The really scary thing that happens is when we have a couple of fox hunting at night and keeping track of each other by howling. Their howling sounds like two babies screaming and it unnerves the neighbors a bit.

The only thing that makes me nervous is watching out for Andrew Cunanan types that want to pop me for my pickup. Happy dreams!