Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,200 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 53 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

OK, so I have heard all the scary rumors of demonic little creatures jumping on cars, chasing people, and causing wierd things to happen. I read about the strange lights (Don’t all supposedly haunted cemeteries have THOSE?) and the spirit of a woman who may have been spurned (Or just upset that her cheapskate hubby burried his 2nd wife with her when she died as well).

All this sounds like a typical day in the life of Vale End Cemetery in Wilton NH if you believe everything you see on the internet. Odd how only the “investigators” are the only ones reporting these occurences while the locals seem barely aware. They have heard the stories of poor Mary Ritter Spaulding whose grave is home to some strange blue lights, but other stories I’ve seen, they know nothing about.  The only blue lady we saw today was a wildcrafting woman who often roams the cemetery but couldn’t find any mushrooms on this occasion. Local authorities monitor the site well (due to tresspassing intruders at night, go figure) and none have reported seeing anything odd.

No funny lights (of course it was day) and no odd cold spots, no gnome like creatures out of the corner on they eye, no car trouble caused by gremlins. Who started calling these little demons “grovers” in the first place? Too much LSD in the Kool-Aide while watching Sesame Street I’d bet.

Vale End Cemetery is NOT the hot spot of phenomena some would like you to believe. What it IS is a beautiful rural woodland cemetery set on a hill near a bright blue pond that you can glimpse through the trees at one end. The back road leading there is narrow and if another car approaches one has to move over a bit to make room, taking care as the car brushes against the bushes on the side of the road. The earliest stone I saw was 1769 and the only sad thing I noticed was a center area where there seemed to be a lot of children’s graves.

Go visit during the day if you can. It’s peaceful and the location is beautiful.

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,800 times in 2010. That’s about 7 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 7 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 21 posts. There were 37 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 14mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 22nd with 52 views. The most popular post that day was And Now You Know the Rest of the Story….

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were thegraveyardrabbit.com, facebook.com, directory-gyra.blogspot.com, peteralexandervaughn.wordpress.com, and search.aol.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for witch bonney, gilson road cemetery, witch bonnie lowell ma, gilson rd cemetery, and clara bonney.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

And Now You Know the Rest of the Story… September 2009
4 comments

Witch Bonney December 2008
9 comments

Gilson Road Cemetery December 2008
1 comment

Clara Bonney aka Witch Bonney June 2010
1 Like on WordPress.com,

Out For Blood May 2010
10 comments

“…no girl had ever moved me with a story of spiritual suffering and so beautifully her soul showing out radiant as an angel wandering in hell and the hell the selfsame streets I’d roamed in watching, watching for someone just like her and never dreaming the darkness and the mystery and eventuality of our meeting in eternity…”

On the Road

Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsburg at Keroac's Grave

I covered Ms Bonney’s history in a previous post. [Witch Bonney]  Tomorrow is Clara’s birthday. This is my gift to her. Happy Birthday Clara Bonney Lilley.

As you can see from the picture at the left, those authors include Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

On this particular visit, I only spent a brief time in this area of the cemetery. I’ll be returning soon to investigate the section opened up in 1998 called “The Knoll” which includes an area consecrated for Jewish burials.

Other noteworthy “residents” here include Daniel Chester French who designed the Minuteman Statue at Concord’s North Bridge and  Washington’s D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial statue, Ephraim Wales Bull who developed the sweet variety of grape popularly known as the Concord Grape, and Elizabeth Peabody who opened the first English speaking kindergarten in the United States.

 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.

Recently I found a stone that really put my brain to work as it seemed to be almost entirely in Latin. Only the small engraved quote at the bottom was in English. With my best ability (as I have been trying to learn Latin anyway) and a really good Latin study tool site, I have made out the gist of the stone (and yes, there were misspellings that made it tricky).

Generally, here is what it says:

Here lies (rests) in peace

Johannes Kay Clagett, Lad (young man/boy)

(in life)

Innocent, quiet, handsome

on the 12th day of Feb, 1782

(father absent)

hit by a lead ball

suddenly, unfortunately young he was

cut down

in London he was conceived (? begotten)

Piscataqua born(?)

He died

He lived to be 12 years 4 months

How loved, how valued once, ??? thee not

To whom related or by whom begot

A heap of dust alone remains of thee

Tis all thou art! And all the ?Proup? Shall…

A P

I could have gotten some of it “fuzzy” but at least it’s clear enough to understand what happened to this poor child. Of course, his body may not even be there.  What other tragedy struck the remains of this child? Well, that is a story for another time.

This week is overcast and stormy as February in New England tends to be.  Forecasts of snow and rain and mix do not lend well to romping through graveyards and cemeteries, HOWEVER, I did just that while the snow was low and before it gained depth once again.

Hillcrest Cemetery is located on a rural road in Litchfield NH. I enjoyed the drive almost as much as the Cemetery itself, passing old farmhouses and a stone library which I’ll have to check out later.

As I said, the day was overcast so with my uncomplicated and inexpensive camera, some images are a bit darker than I’d like. If I ever get to figuring out a photo editing program I will fix that but until then, I have this explanation.

The Cemetery seems to have been used (and may still be) up until the late 1990′s. I don’t recall any newer graves but my observations were limited by snow and time.

You can see some of the English and Scottish history of the area in the names on the stones: Kendall, Reid, Underwood, McQuesten, Leach, Parker and the most notable Bancroft. This is probably one of the most recognized local names because of the Charles Bancroft Highway which really isn’t much of a highway, just a 2 lane road through Litchfield.

One of the most interesting graves I saw was a more recent one with the name “Anderson”. To the right of the name stone there is a small statue of a bison and some sort of animal antler on the ground behind it. Curiouser and curiouser.