I didn’t start my love of cemeteries until I moved to New England. Cemeteries in the Midwest always made me feel uncomfortable. They were to be avoided if possible. So imagine my surprise when I found myself pulling into one on a color-exploding Autumn afternoon. It was a quiet, out of the way place that allowed my daughter to nurse her child without prying eyes.
The cemetery was in York, Maine… a sprawling piece of real estate behind the big white church in the center of town. I now know it is called the First Parish Cemetery behind First Parish Congregational Church on York Street. My initial reaction was how peaceful the cemetery was. The residents here were truly ‘at rest’. I found myself back there several times, to take pictures or to just sit and ponder. I wondered especially about the differences in energies between East Coast and Midwest cemeteries.
A while later, I became friends with Roxie Zwicker. She has earned the moniker, “New England’s Scary Godmother” from the Boston Herald and it is well deserved. Roxie is a walking encyclopedia of New England history and the current Paranormal activity associated with such history. She wears many hats and is multi-talented, and is well known in the Portsmouth, NH area as the owner of New England Curiosities. It is on one of her ‘walking tours’ of the Point of Graves Cemetery that solidified my fascination with graveyards. I didn’t realize until then, that cemeteries could be a source of history and the stones a form of Art.
I became addicted to the stories. I wanted to know about these people. Who they were, how they lived and died, and why they existed. That exploded over into my personal life. I now needed to know my own Ancestors. Little did I know at the time, of my familial connection to the Point of Graves, Portsmouth, and New England history in general.
I have since become a ‘regular’ on a Shadows and Stones Point of Graves tour. I’m the one with the funky walking stick. I’ve heard the stories about the residents many, many times. They never get boring. But I’m not there for the history alone. Its the other things that happen on this cemetery tour. Point of Graves is… well… full of Spiritual activity. Call it haunted, if you will. Many tell stories of Paranormal activity and I could tell of many myself. Let’s just say there are things that happen at the Point of Graves that cannot be explained. It has to be experienced.
One such experience happened the night of July 18, 2015.