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Burkholder Cemetery

Jacob Burkholder was born in Ementhan, Bern, Switzerland, in 1747, and he married Sophia de Roche in September 1765 in Pennsylvania, U.S.A.[1]

In October 1794 Jacob and his wife were one of the first pioneering families to settle in the Hamilton Mountain area,[2] establishing the Burkholder settlement on the Mohawk Trail. They also established a cemetery on a portion of land, and, sadly, one of the first interments to the Burkholder Cemetery was that of their son Joseph Burkholder, who died after falling off of a roof.[3]

In the early 1800s, people from surrounding neighbourhoods were bringing deceased family members to the cemetery to be placed beside Burkholder family members; due to the Burkholder’s religious beliefs and them being so community-minded, nobody was refused.[4]

The epitaph on the stone marking the resting place of Christian Burkholder, who died in 1843, reads:

REMEMBER FRIEND, AS YOU PASS BY

AS YOU ARE NON SO ONCE WAS I

AS I AM NOW, SO YOU WILL BE

PREPARE FOR DEATH AND FOLLOW ME[5]

It is very much a memento mori–style message. Integral to some forms of art and literature, memento mori is a Latin phrase that translates to “remember your mortality” or “remember you will die.”

The epitaph and the sentiment fit well with the legends regarding the Burkholder Cemetery, which speak of an unearthly orb of light commonly seen floating there, as if to announce that another soul has been claimed.

In an article written for the Haunted Hamilton website about Burkholder Cemetery, Chris Mills wrote about an experience he had there.

Without any prior knowledge of this historical cemetery’s past, I paid my first ever visit inside its gates. It was mid-afternoon, and the sun was shining brightly as I arrived on location. To be completely honest, I’d never experienced such an eerie feeling entering a cemetery before. The moment I stepped inside the main gate, the sky became overcast and a strong wind had developed. My legs began to shake nervously as I walked past the graves.[6]

The bizarre and strange feeling that overcame Mills isn’t surprising, particularly given the long history of strange reports from the site.

Spectral lights over graves or where murderous activities took place are not uncommon. In relation to Burkholder Cemetery, however, their presence has historically been associated with the premonition of death.

It is said that a light would shine in the dead of night while the townsfolk slept. It signified a departed soul and was alleged to light up over the adjacent Burkholder Church and hover along the length of the roof before floating quietly into the graveyard. Similar eerie lights were said to occasionally have been seen hovering above the house of the departed and take similar paths to the grave, as illustrating the path between life and death taking place.[7]

The typical path of soul departing from body and body being laid to rest in a grave has sometimes been shaken and turned around.

Grave robbing was a not-uncommon practice, particularly in a town with medical practitioners. Corpses for medical study could be extremely hard to come by back in those days. A doctor could either eagerly wait in the hopes that convicted criminals would be put to death and their bodies donated to the pursuit of medicine, or they could find another way....

In the dead of night, a local doctor dug up freshly interred bodies to use for medical study. He would have gotten away with his crimes if not for a female servant who shared stories with the locals about the strange pieces of flesh she found in the wash-boiler of the doctor’s home.[8]

Over the years, many photographs and videos have been taken at the cemetery, each photographer anxious to try to document evidence of the legendary lights.

But the main thing that all who visit this historic site are witness to are the quiet graves, some anonymous stones, and others with eerily prophetic messages for the living — all reminders that one day those looking upon the stones will, too, inevitably pass into death.