“…after the second sexton’s disappearance, in 1908, the burial ground fell into disuse, and was slowly smothered by undergrowth.”

The first shot is from the Beddoe-Rose Cemetery, which in real life, is a bit battered by the years, and probably falling tree limbs, but isn’t spooky in the slightest.  It was a burial plot for two families, that began farming along Keuka Lake after the Revolution, and dates back to 1815.  The last burial was over a hundred years ago, and about seventy years ago, the state purchased the land for a park.  The farmhouse was torn down, and the little hillock is now surrounded by woods.

The scratches on the sign board, from a state forest near Naples, NY, are just rust or something.

And not blood-stained claw marks.

Pretty sure.

Looking for these shots, however, I did find some genuinely scary stuff:

Portapotties, chemical toilets, whatever you call them, these things make your blood run cold.  Some time this century, we need to gather all the villagers, with pitchforks and torches, and chase these horrors from our public places and gatherings. They’re like little plastic museums of the Dark Ages. We’re a couple centuries overdue for well-ventilated, self-cleansing versions.  Public parks should have public restrooms, why do we allow ourselves to be inconvenienced, wait, discommoded in this way?

Moby Grape meets Black Sabbath

Two old-time horrors in this shot.

On the top left, a wreath made of hair. Indescribably creepy.

And in front, in all its splendiferous horribleness, is an 1862 “half-mourning” dress.

The Civil War was bad enough, without this kind of assault.

Imagine some poor vet, having survived Antietam and Gettysburg, limping home from Appomattox, his brain teeming with battlefield horrors, running into this thing.  Hadn’t he suffered enough?

Maybe this dress is a widow’s  expression of pent-up rage, over Victorian strictures – some book of etiquette specified a schedule, when it was deemed seemly to only be half-sad about someone’s death.  And this widow took her revenge, with this lilac & black attack.

Who the heck would give creepy coin banks like this, to a kid??

When your name is Dillman, I guess it’s natural to take an interest in pickling. Back in my hometown, in 1902, the Dillman brothers founded this company, which perfumed the area for many years. Seriously, Kraut Juice??   I just know, that if this health drink was still around when I was a kid, my parents would’ve made me drink it.

A Seneca headdress, as you probably know, did not remotely resemble this “Plains Warbonnet” on the label.

Bonus Ghost Story

Well, here’s a short ghost story, of sorts.  It’s been told to me by my dad, many times.  Many times.  Many times.

On the wall of my bedroom, in my parents’ home, hang four old swords.  One is a Civil War non-com’s, and was given to my father when he was a boy.

A little while after it was given to him, he walked up to the hardware store, bought some fancy brass hooks, and hung the sword on his bedroom wall.  Even though my grandmother had told to not do that, because it might fall off somehow, during the night, and stab him.  Once it was hung, he then went downstairs, to feed the dog, a large, very sweet Newfoundland.

The dog, as soon as he was in the house, ignored his dinner, and ran upstairs, which was very unusual, since he was always hungry, and knew he wasn’t allowed in the bedrooms.  He then stood in the doorway of my dad’s bedroom, and began to bark and growl.

Now, my dad says, that dog only growled four times in his entire life.  The other three times, he’d taken a dislike to the UPS van.  Otherwise, and this dog lived nearly twice the typical lifespan for that breed, he simply never growled.  He was a big dog, 150 pounds, and when he growled, it was impressive.  It scared the living crap out of the UPS man, and he stopped driving up to the house, and often just hung the parcels on the mailbox by the street.

But that afternoon, the dog stood in the doorway, looking into the bedroom and growled and growled.

My father, with complete composure, acted quickly and decisively, the way he always does in these situations.

He ran outside.

The dog followed, and together, they sat on the front lawn, until it started to get dark, and the folks came home to make dinner. At the time, neither of them said anything about the growling to my grandparents.

Now, it’s possible there was a bat in the room.  It wouldn’t be the first time – my father often left the screens open, so he could throw things out the window, fiddle with the wire antenna to his radio, which he’d strung out to a fencepost, or shoot his BB gun at tin cans on the driveway, even though he’d promised never to load the gun inside the house.  But he says, the screen was closed, and he didn’t see any bats.  He believes it was something to do with hanging up that sword.

Now it’s been on my bedroom wall for quite a while, and nothing’s happened, so far.