2021-06-22: Ghost Hunting in a Haunted Cemetery While Geocaching in Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut

Today's leg of our geocaching road trip adventure takes us from eastern Pennsylvania, through New York, and into Connecticut in search of a Haunted Cemetery. There's one thing I can say for sure about the northeast... too much traffic! We drove some nice backroads up here but even they were busy. Not a whole lot of stops today, but let us see if we can find some ghosts! Climb aboard the GeoJeep and let's go.

After breakfast this morning we hit the ramp to the Interstate. The next few counties I already had completed on my geocaching counties map. So we drove north on I-99 and then east on I-80 into Union County, Pennsylvania.

The last exit before leaving the county, I caught the off-ramp for a quick urban park-n-grab geocache in a parking lot (GC20E51). Then a few more miles later at a rest area in Montour County (GC2TVJG). Taking I-81 north and having all those counties already, the next stop is off I-84 eastbound. Another quick off exit geocache stop for Wayne County, PA (GC8NKGZ).

Finally next up in Pike County, PA, it was a 2-stage geocache at an interesting location. The Simons Town Cemetery (GC1JPJV) is a small well kept cemetery with just over 200 burials dating back to the early 1800's. This stone wall that outlines the boundary is original and approximately 200 years old. As for the geocache itself, I found the first stage but not the second. 

Crossing over into New York, it wasn't until we got into Putnam County that I made a quick exit off of I-84 for a parking lot geocache to claim that county (GC4ZZFV).

Now it was 6:00 in the evening before we finally made it to our destination. My wife and her granddaughter are fans of the "Annabelle", "The Conjouring" and similar paranormal movies. They like all those scary movies. To me... they're comedies. Mainly because of watching them jump, scream, and react to all scary scenes! They're having heart attacks, I'm laughing!

Well it was here in Greater Bridgeport County, Connecticut and in the small community of Upper Stepney that we come to our last geocache of the day. Located in the supposedly haunted Stepney Cemetery (GC40985) are the graves belonging to Ed (1926-2006) and Lorraine Warren (1927-2019). They were paranormal investigators and were highly regarded to be the leading experts of the supernatural.

They were frequently asked to give lectures and speak about the supernatural phenomena around the world. They consulted police investigations multiple times in relation to satanic ritualistic murders. Authors of many books, some which were made into movies, they were one of the few handpicked investigators who looked into the Amityville Horror Case and later consultants for the filming of the movie. He was one of only seven religious demonologists in the country.

The Stepney Cemetery, formerly known as the Birdsey's Plain Cemetery or the Beardsley Plain Cemetery, was officially established in 1794. The oldest headstone is that of Nathaniel W. Knapp from 1787. The "haunted" part comes in several folklore stories. The most common is that of the "Lady in White." A dark haired woman in a long white Victorian dress who supposedly originally buried in the Union Cemetery four miles away. Sometimes she makes her way here for a visit in the Stepney Cemetery. Some say she's looking for a lost love. Other stories say she was murdered and wants to reveal the guilty person. And another legend was that she was falsely accused of murdering her husband and wants to tell her side of the story. For our visit on this day, we didn't see any ghosts or strange activity.

As for the geocache, it was another cemetery DNF for the day. We "Did Not Find" any cemetery caches or cemetery ghosts today. And getting late, we decided head west and to get back to a more rural less congested area, grab some dinner and find a hotel.

Until we meet again...

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2014-06-10: Road Trip Day #4 New Hampshire, Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania

Day four of our 2014 summer road trip and we picked up 12 caches in New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. One of the reasons for driving up this way was to go Geocaching in NH and VT. Now we have found Geocaches in 49 of the 50 states! The only one left is Hawaii. But that's for another adventure...

Our first stop and cache for the day was just down the road in West Burying Ground 1772, located in West Chesterfield, NH. Not much is known about this cemetery, but we did find a couple of headstones dating back to the late 1700's.

From there we continued westbound on Hwy 9 across Vermont. We grabbed a couple of quick caches during gas or food stops, but nothing worth noting. But just before we crossed the VT/NY border, we saw this huge structure sticking out above the trees and had to investigate. It turned out to be the Bennington Battle Monument. It is the tallest structure in all of Vermont and commemorates the Battle of Bennington that lead to the turning point in the Revolutionary War. Turns out there was also a Geocache hidden here as well.

OK, so here's another great story and reason for Geocaching. After leaving the monument, we crossed over the border into New York. Several miles down the road, that probably millions of people have passed by without even noticing that it's there, was a virtual Geocache. The reason was to give notice to this single headstone / monument for Mike Kane. "Killed here by unknown assassin July 26, 1930."

Further investigation by other Geocachers have found that Mike Kane was a Bennington taxi driver and was murdered along Route 7 near the Stone School House. His murderers were not caught until 1936. A Mr. Pencus and a Mr. Franco were arrested, convicted and sentenced. A Miss Mark was also arrested and charged. She turned state evidence and was not prosecuted.

Going further west, we arrive in Albany, NY, the state capital to view some of the sites and find 3 virtual Geocaches. The first was the King Memorial Fountain, designed by Scottish sculpter J. Massey Rhind. Second was the Women Veterans Memorial, followed by a geometric sculpture near the Empire State Plaza. We also took some time to walk around and admire some of the architecture in the area.

 

By now time was against us and it was getting late in the afternoon. I wanted to make it down into western Pennsylvania for the night, but I also wanted to make a few quick stops by some historical mansions along the Hudson River. Because it was late, we didn't have the opportunity to tour the inside. We did get to view the grounds around the outside. They were the Ogden & Ruth Livingston Mills Home, the Vanderbuilt Mansion, and the FDR mansion.

Now it was time to drive off into the sunset and into the evening to get halfway across Pennsylvania. It was a full, fun, and adventurous day, full of beauty and history! And we're only halfway in our road trip. Time for sleep!