Throughout our histories and cultures, cemeteries or places where we've buried our dead often echo with the air of mystery and intrigue. From stories told around bonfires to books and movies, the atmosphere of otherworldliness has permeated these final resting places.
Unsurprisingly, these places are often steeped in legends and myths, adding an extra layer of fascination to historically captivating graveyards. Tales range from unsettling presences to cursed gravestones, and the stories and myths are as diverse as the people who rest within the cemetery.
Damien II and Eternal Silence: Graceland Cemetery
Graceland Cemetery is located in the uptown community area of Chicago. It's more than a cemetery, boasting a certified arboretum (a botanical garden specializing in trees and woody plants) and a nearly perfect example of turning cemeteries into beautiful gardens. Graceland is also the final resting place for many of Chicago's elite and unusual, unique residents.
Graceland visitors can find the grave sites of those who built the Second City, the Designer of the Chicago Plan and head of planning for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and some of the city financiers and socialites' grandest and most mysterious graves.
Yet, one of the cemetery's most imposing and significant graves is that of Potter and Bertha Honoré Palmer, who struck it rich in real estate and hospitality. Copying the luxury found in their hotel, the Palmer House, they are buried in two sarcophagi under a striking Greco-Roman mausoleum.
Their grave became canonized for horror film buffs as it was featured in Damien: Omen II in a burial scene.
In addition to the Palmer grave becoming part of horror culture and history, several pieces of folklore and tales surround the number of statues adorning certain gravesites. One of the most famous is perhaps Eternal Silence. Eternal Silence is a ten-foot-tall sculpture of a highly shrouded, mysterious figure with features hidden within a deep hood. Brooding and intimidating, the figure holds one arm before its face, its robe sleeve trailing to the ground. The Eternal Silence stands guard on the plot of the Graves family, descendants of Dexter Graves, one of the earliest settlers in Chicago.
The myth connected to the Eternal Silence states that for those curious and brave enough, you can find when your life ends if you can gaze directly at the cold, unbreaking gaze of the monument.
St. Augustine's Donkey
Not all mysterious graves are for human remains. In the summer of 2007, Carl D. Halbirt, a Florida St. Augustine Archaeologist, was excavating in response to the construction of a retaining wall needed to alleviate sedimentation along the foundation of a house on Old Quarry Road. Within the backyard of the home, buried in a small grave, was the skeleton of a donkey that had all four legs skillfully disarticulated at the joints. What makes this grave such a mystery is the lack of butchering or cut marks from the forelimbs and rear limbs, marking a skilled and possibly respectful disarticulation, with a marked indent on the top of its skull, suggesting a blow to the head likely killed it.
What intrigues archaeologists is why the donkey was carefully disarticulated, and evidence suggests it was not used for food, and the body was placed and arranged to face north and south.
Digging a wider hole for an aging donkey or wounded one that needed to be put down and buried whole makes far more sense than the much smaller hole with arranged limbs on top. Carl Halbirt has been quoted saying that he believes the animal might have been used by someone who managed or ministered at the church hospital of La Soledad in the 17th Century, as it was buried next to the church. Otherwise, experts are still unsure of the meaning and purpose behind this mysterious Donkey burial.
Ball Cemetery, Springfield, Nebraska
Beginning as a private family cemetery, the Ball Cemetery in Springfield, Nebraska, has become the backdrop for several hauntings and stories of apparitions. The graveyard is cared for by its owner, who has dogs and, reportedly, a shotgun.
Some who visit claim to feel something or someone tug on their clothing, and some report visible scratches or bruises.
Due to its secluded location, many find Ball Cemetery downright eerie, and in some cases, thanks to several paranormal hobbies and investigators, Ball Cemetery's mysterious and haunting visuals have attracted many visitors. While visitors must have permission to enter the cemetery, not all visitors do.
The unfortunate side of these myths and tales is that the graveyard suffers from vandalism.
To this day, cemeteries, graveyards, and burial places hold unique tales, mysteries, legends, and invaluable history reflecting life and death. They are part of the human experience.