I am rarely alone on my jaunts to visit the dead and what my friend and I discovered on our latest excursion shocked and saddened us. I was going to make my own post on this issue but I think he did it so eloquently, I wouldn’t have been able to do better. Posted here with permission by the author, one edit allowed for appropriateness.
May 10, 2010 by Peter . Yesterday afternoon I was up at Pine Hill Cemetery, also known as Blood Cemetery in Hollis, NH. This old graveyard has been known to produce a ghost or two. Local legend has it that 
the ghost of Abel Blood haunts this cemetery. Supposedly after dark the hand on his gravestone, which normally points upwards to the heavens, will point straight down. Now I’ve been many times, and I’ve been at night, and I’ve never seen it happen. I personally don’t think that Abel Blood’s restless spirit walks this old graveyard.
Truthfully, the many times I’ve been here, I’ve gotten nothing but a good, happy and peaceful vibe. It doesn’t feel like it’s haunted by the dead.
But it’s haunted nevertheless. It’s haunted by the living. As I drew closer to Abel’s resting place, a sick feeling came over me. And there it was: his stone was no longer there. I later learned that his stone was initially defaced by chipping the hand off his stone. Then his stone was knocked down and switched with a stone in another cemetery, and now it’s just plain gone.
Looking around I also noticed what appeared to be motion detectors placed on all four corners of the cemetery and a new post with spotlights. So it’s come to this. It’s bad enough that the living have their rights trampled on by thoughtless jerks who have no respect for anyone. Now the dead cannot rest either. Imagine. Putting up motion detectors and spotlights in a graveyard.
The cemetery is beautiful and I don’t get any feeling that there’s anything paranormal going on. It has a very peaceful vibe. Actually it has more than that. To me it has almost an old fashioned feel to it, like stepping back in time. It’s up on a hill. Behind it are beautiful apple orchards. It just doesn’t feel haunted and I’ve personally never witnessed anything here.
In researching Blood Cemetery I came across a message board and it seems (allegedly) that someone who is responsible for the damage, or knows who is, was talking (bragging) about how he knows where the stone is and how no one will ever find it. I don’t know if that’s true, or just talk, but if the f*******s responsible for the damage are reading this: I suggest you make it right.
Here are some pics that I took yesterday:
Blood Plot with Damage 
Apple Orchards behind Graveyard 
Cemetery From Orchards 
Blood Family Plot with Damage 
One of 4 Motion Sensors 
Spotlights 
Iron Ring on stonewall. Used to hitch horses. © 2010. All Rights Reserved.
Totally interesting post–but even this reminds us of the main lesson that graveyards teach us: nothing, NOTHING lasts forever. Not even cemeteries… Enjoy every moment while you can for what it can give you. Comperisons to past or future only bring suffering… Really enjoyed this post!
I grew up just down the road from Blood Cemetery, and as a young girl and even as an adult, I often walked or rode my bike up to it. Many, many times I brought a book and spent hours reading there in the sun, leaning against a stone.
I had a favorite spot: these three Farley sisters who all seemed to have died when they were teenagers. I was so curious about them, and I had a habit of going to their graves when I was upset about some drama or other in my teenage years, and I’d talk to those girls like they were really there. For me, it was always a quiet, peaceful, pleasant spot for me to visit any time of year. I never had a strange occurrence there or felt like I was unwelcome. Maybe the spirits took pity on me! However, a friend of mine did go there to take photos once, and he said that the lens of his camera mysteriously shattered when he was changing it. Paranormal activity? I have my doubts.
Then, when I was home from a college visit, I went up to the cemetery, and the girls’ stones had been cruelly knocked down. Eventually they were replaced with markers. The lovely verse inscriptions were lost.
People forget that cemeteries aren’t for the dead — they’re for the living. And those who have no respect for either will do what they can to snatch the peace that these places are supposed to bring. I’m glad that some people are still enjoying my old stomping ground!
That’s beautiful! Yes, I felt so very calm and peaceful there. I didn’t want to leave, just hang around. I can see how reading a book there would be fantastic. I wanted to picnic. I know some would think that odd but soaking up the history and stories of the people of a place like that is mesmerizing.
Alright, I don’t even know what to say here. My friends and i just got home from this cemetery. We’re really into the whole ghost hunting thing – we’ve been to the Woodlawn Cemetery a million times before because it’s closer to us and we’ve heard some lovely spirit stories about the Chapel, but maybe it’s because we’re not rude and ridiculous, but nothing weird or spiritual ever happens to us. So we traveled 2 hours to this cemetery to try and find some kind of activity. [I know, I know, the signs on the cemeteries always say that they're open dawn to dusk only, but seriously we've never hurt anything, we just take pictures and read gravestones. As people who truly believe in ghosts and spirits we would NEVER want to anger them ever.] We walked through the little gate area and took a few steps into the cemetery and one of the lights turned on.. it wasn’t a big deal it was actually kind of helpful. But then somebody else yelled and said “there is a red light on the black box sticking out under the light. it’s recording us.”
Also, as soon as we walked in front of the box, an alarm went off in the distance. Four of us heard it. I couldn’t believe it.
Did they really put security up that much? So that we couldn’t even get our pictures? It seems crazy to me, but maybe I just don’t understand.
Unfortunately, this cemetery is so well publicized that these measures DID have to be taken. It is sad to know that there are people out there with so little respect and common sense that they vandalize cemeteries. This one in particular has had the stone of Able Blood (and others) broken in the past but more recently taken, changed with another stone from another cemetery and finally thrown into a river. So, the measures are not crazy. The reason they had to is.
This act was atrocious and appalling! I had to go to dictionary.com to find the best words, and “appalling” fits well, because it causes “dismay” – utter disheartenment. That was my first reaction, well, after shock. Then comes ANGER.
I used to love to go to cemeteries also. I’d be a daytime visitor, though, and they would often inspire me to sing.
I half-disagree with Angela’s comment above, that “cemeteries aren’t for the dead — they’re for the living.” We don’t know that for a fact. Yes, indisputably, “immortalizing the dead (as best we can, and obviously with a degree of futility in the face of vandals) with a headstone and pertinent facts and wishes is for the living/loved ones, it goes beyond the living. We don’t know whether the dead know we are there and can see how we are acting while we are there.
I’ve had occasion to be put into cemeteries for frivolous reasons like a scavenger hunt – to find a certain headstone and gather the tidbit on it for the hunt. I was very uncomfortable with the use of a cemetery for that purpose as it seemed to me to be profaning their sanctity, peace and showing disrespect. I’d like to say I refused to participate, but I was young, and weak (no real excuse that I’ll allow myself), and have felt guilty about it ever since.
I have heard that vandalism to the grave stones is only part of the story. There have been instances of the granite that makes up some of the walls being stolen from cemeteries. There was even a granite marker from way way back taken in Amherst or Milford this past summer. I think it is sad that they take more than just a material item that they walk away with.
You are right, they take a piece of history and disrespect the family of the deceased who may have had to work hard to memorialize their loved one. Even if it’s only a piece, even if it’s only a part of the wall, it disrupts the integrity of what we leave behind.
A Good Update. The marker that I mentioned in my previous post was returned! As mysteriously as it disappeared it has been placed back where it was taken from. This was posted in the telegraph today 11-22-2010. Perhaps some one’s conscience was awakened.
This is the link to the online article http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/900328-196/granite-block-signs-return-mystery-too.html
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