Halloween Graveyards
By Natasha Carvell, Editor
October 2005
If you live for the shuddersome thrill of channeling the other side with a Ouija board, think beyond your usual haunts this Halloween and scare yourself silly with our Editor’s Council’s round-up of bewitching graveyards. Something tells us you’ll have a wicked good time…
London: Highgate Cemetery
Founded in 1839, high on a hilltop above the soot and smoke of London, this massive Romantic-Gothic woodland park became the most fashionable—and mystical—place to be buried in Victorian society. Karl Marx, Charles Dickens, and many of Queen Victoria’s Royal household are among the 850 notables buried here. Highland was immortalized as the “most magical place in London” and was reputedly the setting for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The cemetery is notorious for its myriad myths and legends--from mysterious exploding coffins to rumors of a predatory vampire, which led locals to storm the cemetery with torches and garlic in the 1960s. The BBC’s Sexton’s Tales recounts the oral history of grave-diggers who traded stories of the buried when the damp English fog made it difficult to complete their grim task (perfect for the plane ride over). By the late 1970s, the Egyptian-style catacombs and sweeping rural landscapes were reclaimed by nature’s overgrowth, but thankfully, Highgate has recently been restored for visitors.
Boston: Old Granary Burying Ground
Founded in 1660, this burying ground for Revolution-era patriots and victims of the Boston Massacre is the third oldest in Boston. Follow the Freedom Trail to the massive Egyptian revival entrance gate adjacent to Park Street Church, which dates back to 1809 and is the site of the original granary.
Paul Revere is buried here, as are three signers of the Declaration of Independence: John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, and Samuel Adams. Seek out the grave of Elizabeth Vergoose, the famous storyteller “Mother Goose” who was laid to rest in 1690—look for the old English writing and mottled cement angels that poke out from beneath piles of leaves in the fall.
Los Angeles: Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park
Though there’s hardly anything spooky about this cemetery, it is ironic that this intimate burying site is tucked behind a movie theater in Westwood Village. Countless deceased stars of the silver screen call Pierce Brothers home, including Marilyn Monroe who was laid to rest here after passing away in neighboring Brentwood. Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Truman Capote, Frank Zappa, Roy Orbison, and Dean Martin are only a handful of the other famous names you’ll find on the walls of outdoor crypts. This is the most visitor-friendly celebrity cemetery in L.A., since the small size makes it easy to locate the names of departed luminaries.
Tarrytown, NY: Old Dutch Burying Ground of Sleepy Hollow
The Old Dutch Burying Ground is located along what used to be the Albany Post Road (Route 9), in an entrancing part of the Hudson River Valley that was once home to Irving Washington. The ruins of this 17th-century cemetery, in the yard of the creepy, stone Old Dutch Church, conjure images of the galloping headless horseman from Washington’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (it is his alleged haunting ground). The Romantic-style design and iconic skull and angel grave-markers are only enhanced by the overrun vines and dense wooded areas that comprise the property. The bordering, 860-acre Rockefeller State Preserve also harkens back to the days of Ichabod Crane and makes for a wonderfully eerie afternoon hike. (The newer, albeit also old, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery surrounds the burying ground, and is often mistaken as such by visitors.)
Paris: Pere Lachaise
The sprawling graveyards we’re used to in the U.S. are modeled after the “garden cemetery” style, of which Paris’s Pere Lachaise was the first, and remains perhaps the most-celebrated of all burial grounds in the world. It hasn’t always been a peaceful resting place for its inhabitants, however, when, in 1991, on the 20th anniversary of his death, Jim Morrison’s dedicated, if nutty, fan base turned out in droves to pay homage to the lead singer of The Doors and rioted when officials tried to stem the tide. We’re sure that the graveyard’s other rebellious notables, such as Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Max Ernst, and Sarah Bernhardt appreciated the mutinous scene from the beyond.
Savannah: Bonaventure and Colonial Park Cemeteries
Known as one of the South’s most charming cities, Savannah also has a certain spooky side to it thanks to its often-tumultuous history as a battleground in the American Revolution and intriguing roots as a port city that attracted all sorts–sailors and voodooists, colonists and slaves, proper ladies and uncouth pirates. So it’s no surprise that the city’s cemeteries are known for their intriguing tales and moody atmospheres. Bonaventure Cemetery’s ornate gravesites were immortalized in the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Colonial Park is the supposed home of a murderous disfigured orphan ghost.
Baltimore: Western Burial Ground
The morbid poems and horror stories of Baltimore’s adopted son Edgar Allen Poe are moderately spooky, but we dare you to defy the goosebumps and try reading his troubled tale The Murders of Rue Morgue at the foot of his gravesite this Halloween. For over 50 years, a mysterious figure dressed in black has been spotted leaving a bottle of cognac and three red roses on the poet’s grave on Poe’s birthday. No one knows the strange gift-bearer’s identity, and some believe he is the ghost of the poet or one of his friends. Western Burial Ground also is home to catacombs full of crypts and tunnels in which mysterious apparitions and noises have been reported over the years. Tours are available on Sunday afternoons.
Chicago: Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery
Bachelor’s Grove is a lesson about what happens when the dead are left unattended. This no longer maintained and ramshackle cemetery is now supposedly overrun with more than just weeds. With the last burial here having taken place in 1989, occult groups using it for rituals, and vandals having destroyed many of the headstones, the disturbed spirits of Bachelor’s Grove have reportedly started to show their discontent with their abandonment by appearing to brave visitors, some even purportedly caught on film. And apparitions of people aren’t the only ghosts here–the specter of a phantom farmhouse along the gravel trail into the cemetery and phantom cars on the turnpike leading up to it have been reported as well.
These graveyards may sound hair-raising, but there’s nothing to be afraid of if you haven’t booked your travel plans for Halloween. You can still enjoy these unearthly delights with a Last-Minute Deal to someplace spooky at www.travelocity.com/halloween.
For more travel tips and advice, check out Amy Ziff’s monthly column,Travel Trends & Advice from A to Z. To suggest a topic for a future column or to tell about a travel experience of your own, please email Amy Ziff at ask.amy@travelocity.com.
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