I enjoy planning trips. I include a variety of places for us to explore. This type of destination was a first for us—a haunted grave site.
In my research phase, I do have places in mind to see. Sometimes, these are renowned museums, opulent houses, stunning cathedrals and beautiful hikes. But then there are those sites that I use as filler. These could be a statue, some other type of roadside attraction, a small park with flowers, or, in this case, a haunted gravestone.
Charlene and I visit cemeteries a lot. There is art in the form of statues and even the headstones themselves. There is a history of who is buried there. And there is drama in the lives that these people have lived. One of the saddest things about graves is there is next to no information on the person interned there. My personal favourite gravestone is one in our hometown. It has a short biography of the person at rest. It’s just a tiny glimpse into the life of this person, but it gives much more information about them than every other gravesite we have seen. My second favourite is The Bean Puzzle Tombstone. It took decades for someone to figure out what it said. I think I might want my gravesite to attract people to come and decipher a small message.
As I was scouring Google and Google Maps for someplace to put a break into our drive between our campsite and a main destination, I stumbled upon a cemetery at the midpoint of that morning’s journey. In that cemetery is a haunted gravesite. We had never been to a haunted gravesite, and I was intrigued.
At Lakeview Cemetery, there is the Gillette/Bishop family tombstone. This is located in the centre of the cemetery, and it has an odd feature on its side. The face of a woman has been slowly appearing. According to local lore, no amount of scrubbing, cleaning, or anything else has been able to remove the image. As time as passed, the image is becoming clearer. Legend has it that once the image is fully revealed, the ghost of Matilda Gillette will escape the grave and haunt the community.
COOL!
I had to include this on our Summer Coastal Trip. It would be the first stop on our final day before we head home and return to the realities of life and work.
We would arrive at the cemetery. It is still an active place of remembrance for people still coming to the site. We found a place to park, and I walked to where I thought Matilda Gillette’s haunted gravesite was. There was an old stone there with a strange marking on it, but it hardly resembled the reclining figure of a woman’s head. We were disappointed. Neither of us could find the grave marker that said, Bishop or Gillette. The location I had figured was wrong.
Disappointed, we returned to the car. For some reason, I looked up and saw a large gravestone. Could that be it? Indeed, it was! “Bishop” could be seen.
With nervous excitement, I moved toward the stone. Wouldn’t it be amazing that there is a haunted stone with a woman’s face trying to escape the confines of death?
Wouldn’t it also be terrifying to discover all those horror movies we watched are, in fact, documentaries????!!!!
I stopped to take a picture of the Gillette side. There were some odd blemishes; the only image I could see was my reflection. I strongly doubt Madam Gillette was a fat old man wearing a hat.
Then I found the Lady In Granite.
I was disappointed.
It took a bit of imagination to see a reclining head of a woman.
I was deeply disappointed.
I began to wonder just how such a legend came to be.
Was there a man who was drunk at the bar? Did he do something stupid and pick a fight with someone and lose? Was he beatened to a pulp with his eyes swollen? Was he lost as he stumbled home, unable to see? He came upon this tomb and, in his stupor and near blindness, saw an image of a woman. Did he try to wipe the stone only to spread blood on it? Did it become a horrifying image for a drunken man, lost in the cemetery on a dark night, after a dark fight, on his way home to his angry wife?
I stared at the supposedly haunted image.
Nothing.
It was a blemish in the stone.
Of course, no amount of cleaning will remove it.
No amount of imagination either will cause this trapped woman to escape.
We were more disappointed in finding the stone than when we couldn’t find it minutes before.
- Search “Lady In Granite” on my All The Places We Have Been Map to see the exact location of this haunted gravestone.
- Please be respectful of others at this cemetery. They might have visited a deceased loved one and not tourists.
