Читать книгу Nashville Haunted Handbook - Jeff Morris - Страница 21

directions

Take I-65 North for 12 miles to Exit 95, the Vietnam Veterans Boulevard exit toward Hendersonville/Gallatin. Follow this road for 3 miles to Exit 3 to the Johnny Cash Parkway toward Hendersonville. Follow this road for a little more than 3 miles, and then turn right onto Walton Ferry Road. The cemetery is not easy to find. It is actually hidden behind a strip mall on your left, on a small strip of grass between the Roma Pizza & Pasta restaurant and the loading dock for the grocery store.

history

For the last few decades, cemeteries in general have gotten larger. While at first it may seem that the growth of cemeteries may have something to do with the increase in population, it may also be the result of the speed of travel. The deceased can be moved farther distances nowadays and loved ones can travel farther distances in order to regularly visit them. The days of burying loved ones on your own property are all but gone. While the days of small cemeteries have almost passed, many such cemeteries remain scattered throughout the country. For many of these cemeteries, records were never kept and a lot of the history has been lost.

This small cemetery, nestled in Hendersonville behind a grocery store and a strip mall, has been around since the 1800s. The dates on the headstones also show that many of the people buried here were children. While the stones do not describe what could have caused so many children to be buried within so small a place, many afflictions from the 1800s and early 1900s, such as cholera, tended to smite the young.

ghost story

Young people, cut down before they have ever had a chance to really experience life, will typically create ghosts. The ghosts at this cemetery are most often seen by the people who run the shops in the nearby strip mall. Since the cemetery is hidden behind the mall, those who regularly have reason to walk out behind the buildings are often the only ones who are even aware that the cemetery is there. The ghost that is most often seen at the cemetery is that of a little girl. When the witnesses see the girl, they generally report that she is dressed in white and is running around the cemetery as if she is playing. As quickly as she appears in the cemetery, she suddenly vanishes.

The little girl is not always seen wearing white; she is sometimes seen in a pinafore dress. The girl in the pinafore acts similarly to the girl in white, but since there are so many children buried in the cemetery and she is wearing something different, some witnesses feel that there are two different spirits who haunt the cemetery.

Beyond the two little girls, witnesses will also encounter balls of light floating through the cemetery and shadowy figures walking around and through the small cemetery. Ghost investigators who have entered the cemetery with audio equipment have captured phantom voices on their recordings.

visiting

Exploring this cemetery at night is legal. At this time, there are no signs or rules that suggest that this cemetery, like many others, closes at dusk. This would make a search for shadow figures or balls of light much easier.