Vale End Cemetery

This is one of those locations that holds a special place in my heart, and one that always seems to get a response from the people who know it.  Much like Met State, it had its heyday years ago and became such a nuisance that police and town officials felt the need to close it at night and monitor it.  And much like Met State, no one seems to talk about it much anymore.

In addition to having two ghosts that sound more like urban legend than haunting, the cemetery seems to be one of the more aggressive pukwudgie stories on record.  I always cite it when talking about the evolution of modern pukwudgie lore.  The stories have changed over the years, but I’ve included links to some of the other stories, especially those of Fiona Broom. Broome first documented parts of the story on her site Hallow Hill, which has now moved to Encounter Ghosts.  Around the time of the story below, Broome had taken down her information because she was worried the pukwudgies in the cemetery were responsible for several attacks and the passing of a friend who had visited the location.

Listen to the location’s part in the changing story of the Pukwudgie.

Vale’s End Cemetery in Wilton, NH, is one of the most terrifying experiences I’ve ever had and one of the few times I feared for my safety.  We went there after visiting a few sites and not having much happen.  I had heard about it on the Internet and had been given warnings of what might be there. (Since, almost every site I’ve visited has posted a warning and has pulled directions and stories because people have been physically harmed there.)  There was supposed to be a documentary about it, but I have yet to find one or hear about it other than though interviews with the people of Wilton.  The cemetery is the home two ghosts and something else indefinable, although they can best be described as trolls or some type of physical demon that can take a solid and non-physical form.  The two ghost are what brought attention to the graveyard.

The first is known as the “Blue Lady”, who in life was known as Mary Ritter.  She was buried and her husband remarried another Mary.  To save money, when the second one died, he buried her with the first one, and that might have angered the woman, although there is nothing in the records to say she has ever harmed anyone.  Her grave is known to glow blue and sometimes she appears with a blue glow around her.  Her grave has been studied, even to the point that pieces of the stone have been broken off, but there has been no logical reason why there should be a glow.

The second spirit is that of a man who buried his daughter in the graveyard.  She was married, and after her father’s death, her husband moved her grave to be with her.  The father is known to walk the rows studying the stones and looking confused.

We arrived in Wilton about ten o’clock and search by car for the sight.  I had no idea where it was, although I had spent every weekend in Wilton with friends for a few years.  Dennis suggested that we go to the police station to ask, but we all agreed that was a bad idea.  Instead we asked this group of teenagers in the square.  They were eager to tell us where it was, a sort of civil pride in the haunting expressed by everyone we talked to.  They gave us rough directions, but we got lost.  This car began to follow us, and then finally signaled us to stop.  They asked us if we were lost and then volunteered to drive us to the cemetery.  We reluctantly agreed, and when we got there, they talked more about some of the people who had come to make the documentary and investigate.

“Would you guys or your friends hide up there to scare people that went in?” asked Jenna.

“Hell no!  We would go up there if you paid us.”

At the time the cemetery was open at night, although I believe that has since changed.  We entered and started on the path to the back where Mary’s grave is.  The temperature immediately dropped.  The cemetery has a straight path that then splits and blends into a circle.  We followed the circle around and eventually found her grave.  Nothing of interest happened, although we all tried to communicate with her.  There were unusual gusts of wind and fog, and one “cloud” (which we were able catch on tape) swarmed around us, stopped for a few seconds and then blew away.  Then the lights started.

As we made our way around the graveyard investigating all of it, we started to see little flickers of light accompanied by a rusting of leaves.  It was sometimes out of the corner of our eyes and sometimes as we looked straight on.  We would go to where we had just seen them, and they would appear a little further in to the cemetery, closer to the woods that surrounded it.  We would go to the next one and the next one, and I started to realize these things were leading us.  The feeling of being watched grew stronger, and it now started to feel like we were being surrounded.  I said it was time to go because I had heard of people being attacked, and it felt like we were outnumbered and helpless.

We started back and got to the path.  Jill was interested in about six small headstones that all belonged to one family and we stopped to look at them.  Jenna heard the footsteps first, right in front of us, coming from the grass.  I looked up and saw a column of black and Jenna saw something more solid, like a flash of white light in the shape of a very tall, bulky, man.  I said it was time to go now and we walked very fast up the path to the entrance.  When we were out, the pressure on my chest stopped, and even Dennis, a true skeptic, said that something explainable and evil was behind those gates.