Friday, September 27, 2013

Haunting In Yellowstone

The historic Roosevelt Arch, the north entrance to Yellowstone 
National Park. It was dedicated on April 24, 1903.
Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872, but in a short-sighted budget move, the government allocated no funds for the upkeep, protection and management of the park. For the first 14 years of its existence, the park was seriously threatened by poachers killing the animals, people throwing rocks and broken tree limbs into the geysers and hot springs in a misguided attempt to stop them up, souvenir hunters broke off large pieces of the geysers and unauthorized developers set up camps for tourists next to hot springs where they built bath and laundry facilities along with toilet facilities located directly over the streams. 

Finally, Congress hired civilian superintendents to protect the land, but there were only a handful to oversee more than 2 million acres of park. In 1886, the park looked to the U.S. Army for help. The cavalry soldiers who came to Yellowstone made their headquarters at the foot of the Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces. Their campground was called Camp Sheridan, but after enduring 5 harsh winters in poorly constructed "temporary" buildings, a permanent post was built and named Fort Yellowstone. 


Simple headstones and wooden markers still stand over the graves
of civilian workers and family members of the soldiers.
By 1910, there were 324 soldiers stationed at Fort Yellowstone. In addition to the soldiers, there were officer's families (marriage was discouraged for enlisted men) and many civilian employees living in the fort. Most of the soldiers considered the assignment to be a good duty station as the work was varied and the scenery couldn't be beat. However, with the very hard winters, encounters with wild animals and the general hazardous duty of army life, deaths inevitably occurred.  Soldiers, wives, children and civilian employees alike were all buried in the nicely tended Fort Yellowstone Army Cemetery.

Congress eventually appropriated sufficient funds for civilian operation of the park and at sunset on July 4, 1916, an Army cannon located at the top of Capitol Hill was fired for the last time. The next day, the army left behind Yellowstone and their dearly departed friends and loved ones. The cemetery was left unattended and for the next year, the grass and weeds grew over the graves and the headstones and wooden markers faded in the winds and snows of winter. The dead didn't seem to mind. 


Even today, coffin-shaped sunken indention's in the ground can 
be found where the soldiers remains were removed.
The very next summer, however, some government official made the decision to move the army dead from Fort Yellowstone Cemetery to  the military cemetery at Custer's Battlefield in Montana. All remains of the soldiers were dug up, but the wives and children were left where they lay. 

An obviously very loved 5 year-old boy's grave. The inscription reads -
"Tis a little grave, but oh take care. Fond hopes are buried there."
That fall, reports started coming in; reports of something strange happening around the old Army Cemetery. Visitors who happened to find themselves  near the cemetery after the sun went down were hearing voices and the sounds of children crying, always coming from the direction of the fenced-in graveyard. Too many reports from too many strangers to dismiss out of hand and all of them saying basically the same thing - children crying, the sound of footsteps in the high grass when nobody could be seen and a feeling of deep sorrow and sadness overcoming those few brave enough to approach near the graves. It's been so for almost a hundred years now. 

The Park Service eventually began maintaining the cemetery; the weeds are kept cut back and an iron post fence was erected a few years ago. But sometimes, after the sun has set, people have reported the children are still crying and the voices are still calling out, calling for their fathers and husbands and friends who were taken away from them.
So many children and all destined to spend eternity without
a  daddy beside them.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Buried Alive!

Being buried alive is a fear which is as old as the custom of burying the dead. Writers such as Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe have written of it. Horror films starring Vincent Price and Boris Karloff have frightened viewers for years. Folklore is full of tales of narrow escapes and of exhumed coffins containing corpses with broken stubs of fingers, hair pulled out by the fistful  and faces frozen in screaming terror as some poor unfortunate soul was buried prematurely and woke up to realize the horrible fate to which they were doomed. Most of these tales are simply that, tales of imagination, tales told from people's fear. But in one case, one woman's fear of being buried alive became a horrific fact.

In the early 1700's, Edinburgh had become known around the world for the advanced medical studies of the human anatomy being conducted there. Doctoral students were assigned one body each to dissect and practice their studies upon. There was also a constant need for bodies to be used by teachers as visual aids. At first, the bodies were of executed criminals and there were enough to fill the demand, but as more and more students were enrolled in the physician program, the demand for bodies became more than the supply. Soon, enterprising individuals began the lucrative business of filling that need by "body snatching" - the illegal digging up and stealing of the reasonably fresh bodies of the recently dearly departed. And if the body happened to have been buried with valuables, well, the ghouls who made a career of body snatching were certainly not above adding grave robbing to their "resurrectionist" resume.

Shankill Graveyard
In 1705 a lady by the name of Margorie McCall lived in Lurgan. She was the wife of John, a successful surgeon, and lived the rather privileged life her husband's profession afforded. Then one day, Margorie contracted a fever and after several days, despite her husbands best efforts, her condition deteriorated and she died. As was common during that time in an effort to curb the spread of the fever, a wake was quickly arranged and burial arrangements were made. During the afternoon wake, a number of people commented on the very expensive ring she wore on her finger in the coffin, but her husband explained that due to her illness, her finger had swollen making it impossible to remove. She was buried in the Shankill Graveyard that evening.

After darkness fell that very same night, just several hours after internment, by the dim light of a small sliver of moon, 2 grave robbers began their grizzly task of digging up Margorie's body. The dirt was still loose so the digging proceeded quickly. Upon uncovering the coffin and prying open the lid, the robbers were happy to see the body was indeed fresh and the expensive ring was still on Margorie's finger. The thieves tried to pull the ring from her finger, but due to the swollen condition, it wouldn't budge so, figuring the dead wouldn't mind, they decided to simply severe the finger. Producing a knife from his pocket, one of the men made a deep cut into the ring finger. With that first drawing of blood, Margorie revived from her coma, sat straight up in her coffin, opened her eyes wide and while staring at the astonished would-be thieves, screamed like a hound from hell!

It was later rumored that 2 very frightened, dirty, stinking men entered a bar several miles from the graveyard. Nobody would go near them as it was obvious by sight and smell their bowels had failed them and the pants they wore were destined for the trash heap. They told their story to the barkeep and after several strong drinks which they gulped down, hastily left and were never seen in the area afterwards.

(BBC photo of Margorie's grave)
Back at the cemetery, Margorie climbed out of her grave and walked back to her home several blocks away. Her husband and children were gathered around the fireplace, together in their sorrow, when they heard a knock at the front door. John, wracked with grief, said, "If your mother were still alive, I'd swear that was her knock." Upon opening the door, he found his late wife standing there in her burial clothes, blood dripping from her cut finger, but still very much alive. Unfortunately, the shock was too much for his heart and he dropped dead on the spot. Two days later, he was buried in the grave that was originally intended to forever hold his wife.

Margorie survived her ordeal, eventually remarried and had several more children. When she finally died for good, her body was again buried in the Shankill graveyard. A tombstone reads, "Margorie McCall - Lived Once. Buried Twice"