Post by mellifluous on Jun 15, 2008 5:42:44 GMT -5
The original graves are beyond the fence in the woods to the back left of the graveyard. In past generations, they said that there were depressions in the ground where the graves had collapsed, but I haven't seen them, nor will I ever go back in there after my one and so far only visit to the cemetery.
I grew up in Cedar Lake and Crown Point, and like everyone there, I was regaled with both the first-hand accounts and the B.S. that gets passed on about haunted places. Selysions, Cook's Corner, Hungry Hill, Gypsies' Graveyard, MacArthur woods, the lake, the swamp, or certain haunted woods and abandoned homes all had a rich and living history of "supernatural" happenings. Now back to the subject.
From some research by others and myself, I have some facts and theory to weave together. Gypsies - the ethnically east-indian nomads of Europe - aren't known to have arrived in North America until the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, so the classic story and place name probably comes from a descriptor for a group of early 19th century settlers who had come West looking for someplace to set up homes in the Territories. There is some speculation as to them having borne a disease of some sort like the flu or some other plague, and this was the reason they were told to stay out of town and denied help. The varying stories agree that the group buried their dead outside of camp and departed for parts unknown. If the kernel of truth rule applies, this may have taken place in the mid 1800s as the land was just opened to white settlement in the mid 1830s. Perhaps it was also an older story from the Native Americans who lived in the area. The Pottawatomie were a tribe that came to settle in the Crown Point area after a series of wars pushed them out of their native Michigan home and onto land possibly occupied by the Miami. This would account for the Crown Point Connection when the cemetery is actually closer to the town of Hebron, and the Gypsies would have probably had more contact with that town.
Three of us went in the afternoon on a clear day in the Summer (I don't remember the month, but probably early July-ish. We parked the truck just off the road and entered the cemetery. The graves in front are recent, so we wandered to the back. I was on the North or Left side, one friend was in the middle, and our third member was on the wooded South side. After we had gone a little more than halfway back we started to smell flowers. Not any particular kind, just an increasingly heavy floral scent. I started to get a headache low in the back of my head that also increased the closer I got to the back fence. I was maybe 10'-15' from the back when I looked up from reading the headstones and saw two pairs of glowing orange orbs just over the fence, farther back than I was, in the woods about 6 1/2' off the ground. I stopped, my head felt really tight, and I started to back up. The pair of orbs followed in the woods, sometimes passing behind trees near the fence line, and definitely in front of the deeper woods. They were bobbing slightly as if their invisible bodies were walking. I occasionally stopped, and they would walk only a step or two, then stop as well. After I got back about midway into the cemetery, they stopped advancing, but didn't go away. One of my friends asked me if I was seeing them, and she said she had the impression that they were kind of shaggy, but I only saw the orange balls. My headache faded as I retreated, and we all decided it was time to leave, so I turned and we got out of there quickly.
That's my story. My brother has another one, also in the daytime, also with a corroborating witness. It was probably spawned by a more recent addition to the cemetery, maybe an older man who died in the 50s or 60s judging by the style of his bike. I don't remember the details well so I'll not go into it here, but he and his friend were genuinely frightened, and these are guys who are not prone to fear.
I grew up in Cedar Lake and Crown Point, and like everyone there, I was regaled with both the first-hand accounts and the B.S. that gets passed on about haunted places. Selysions, Cook's Corner, Hungry Hill, Gypsies' Graveyard, MacArthur woods, the lake, the swamp, or certain haunted woods and abandoned homes all had a rich and living history of "supernatural" happenings. Now back to the subject.
From some research by others and myself, I have some facts and theory to weave together. Gypsies - the ethnically east-indian nomads of Europe - aren't known to have arrived in North America until the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, so the classic story and place name probably comes from a descriptor for a group of early 19th century settlers who had come West looking for someplace to set up homes in the Territories. There is some speculation as to them having borne a disease of some sort like the flu or some other plague, and this was the reason they were told to stay out of town and denied help. The varying stories agree that the group buried their dead outside of camp and departed for parts unknown. If the kernel of truth rule applies, this may have taken place in the mid 1800s as the land was just opened to white settlement in the mid 1830s. Perhaps it was also an older story from the Native Americans who lived in the area. The Pottawatomie were a tribe that came to settle in the Crown Point area after a series of wars pushed them out of their native Michigan home and onto land possibly occupied by the Miami. This would account for the Crown Point Connection when the cemetery is actually closer to the town of Hebron, and the Gypsies would have probably had more contact with that town.
Three of us went in the afternoon on a clear day in the Summer (I don't remember the month, but probably early July-ish. We parked the truck just off the road and entered the cemetery. The graves in front are recent, so we wandered to the back. I was on the North or Left side, one friend was in the middle, and our third member was on the wooded South side. After we had gone a little more than halfway back we started to smell flowers. Not any particular kind, just an increasingly heavy floral scent. I started to get a headache low in the back of my head that also increased the closer I got to the back fence. I was maybe 10'-15' from the back when I looked up from reading the headstones and saw two pairs of glowing orange orbs just over the fence, farther back than I was, in the woods about 6 1/2' off the ground. I stopped, my head felt really tight, and I started to back up. The pair of orbs followed in the woods, sometimes passing behind trees near the fence line, and definitely in front of the deeper woods. They were bobbing slightly as if their invisible bodies were walking. I occasionally stopped, and they would walk only a step or two, then stop as well. After I got back about midway into the cemetery, they stopped advancing, but didn't go away. One of my friends asked me if I was seeing them, and she said she had the impression that they were kind of shaggy, but I only saw the orange balls. My headache faded as I retreated, and we all decided it was time to leave, so I turned and we got out of there quickly.
That's my story. My brother has another one, also in the daytime, also with a corroborating witness. It was probably spawned by a more recent addition to the cemetery, maybe an older man who died in the 50s or 60s judging by the style of his bike. I don't remember the details well so I'll not go into it here, but he and his friend were genuinely frightened, and these are guys who are not prone to fear.