Urban Exploration: an Abandoned (and Haunted) Cemetery in Seattle

This one is right on time for Halloween: a forgotten cemetery in the south of Seattle. In addition, it is supposedly haunted by baby ghosts. And, believe me, visiting it as I did last Monday is truly creepy.

A little bit of History: Seattle, even by New World standards, is a pretty new city. At the beginning of its History in the 1800's it was a very isolated and undeveloped part of the world. In those days, the few people who lived here often joined the so called Fraternal Associations: groups of people who would get together for social activities and also to support each other in a land with not much available. One such society in Seattle was the Independent Order of the Odd Fellows, that had a chapter in south Seattle at the then new Comet Lodge.

Among other services, the Comet Lodge offered burial insurance. Simply put, at the end of the 1800's the members of the Comet Lodge got a piece of land on top of a hill with a wonderful view of the Duwamish river and of Elliott Bay, and when a member passed away, he would be buried on that piece of land, with the costs taken care by the Lodge. The piece of land was named the Comet Lodge Cemetery, and as the lodge was popular back then, pretty soon the cemetery got crowded. Due to the harsh conditions of living so far away back in those days, unfortunately the cemetery ended up getting quite a number of kids and babies.

And after some time things got interesting.

The Comet Lodge eventually became less popular, and it couldn't sustain itself anymore, until it finally closed. And the ownership of the cemetery just... disappeared. It became a piece of land with dead people and nobody owning it. As time passed, the land returned to wilderness, but now and then someone would claim to be the rightful owner of the land, just to turn out to not be true. As part of that, sometimes the person in question would clean the land and move the tombstones around (because, why not?). Also, somehow in those comings and goings half of the cemetery was "sold" and houses were built... on top of buried people.

Finally, after many years, at the beginning of the 2000's King County took over the cemetery. The county only does the bare minimum: it cuts the bushes and removes garbage and... that's it. So, in a sunny Monday I decided to check it out.

There are no fences around the cemetery. Because the cleaning of the land is infrequent, it's better to go there with boots and long pants, even when it's hot. One of the many interesting things of the place is that the tombstones were moved around, so it's impossible to know where the corpses are. You can also see some big holes that clearly were dug by... someone, and perhaps a body was taken away? To add to the creepy environment, it seems that some people are practicing witchcraft at the place: various tombstones had food, coins, desiccated flowers and even a Ouija board on them. Even creepier, given that it is known that there are kids and babies buried, a pile of tombstones had some children toys on them. 

And, as such, there are stories that the ghosts of the kids and babies buried in there haunt this neighborhood. Supposedly on some nights you can see phantom figures said to shimmer with an iridescent glow, and that toys left at the cemetery are moved around. I'll tell you this: those stories seem to be enough to keep homeless people away, given that I didn't find any trace of their presence there.

It really did feel like a place that gives you goosebumps, and I was there on a bright sunny day. If you want a really entertaining Halloween, perhaps you should check it out at night!