Burial Hill

The final resting place of over 2,500 people, including Mayflower passengers Governor William Bradford and William and Mary Brewster. The Pilgrims built their first fort atop this hill, and it served as meetinghouse, church, and courthouse before becoming a cemetery around 1637.

Burial Hill rises above Plymouth, Massachusetts, a cemetery in use since the 1620s when the first Pilgrims began laying their dead to rest on these grounds. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the graveyard sits on what was once Fort Hill, where the Pilgrims erected a meetinghouse and fortress. Many Mayflower passengers are buried here, including Governor William Bradford and William and Mary Brewster. Mary Allerton, the last surviving Mayflower passenger, rests among them. The cemetery saw its final burial in 1957, but the dead have never truly been at rest.

Paranormal investigators have been exploring Burial Hill since the discipline became popular, and nearly every group that investigates reports a heavy, dark, hostile, and oppressive feeling pervading the grounds. Reports rush out of the graveyard of full-body apparitions, disappearing silhouettes, and screams from beyond. Cold spots that defy the ambient temperature are common, as are disembodied whispers and the overwhelming sensation of being watched. Shadowy figures dart between graves after dusk, and faint ethereal lights hover amongst the tombstones.

The most terrifying encounter involves the Eyeless Man. A witness followed what he believed was a historical reenactor in deerskin clothing through the cemetery. When he caught up with the figure, the deerskin-clad man turned around and revealed he had no eyes. After a few seconds of frozen terror, the man turned and walked directly into a light pole, where he vanished.

The ghosts of Thomas Spear and Elizabeth Russell Raymond Spear are seen entering the burial yard from Summer Street, solemnly floating up the path to their daughter's grave. Witnesses note they are invisible from the knees down—partial apparitions drifting toward a child they could not save.

In 1788, the transport ship General Arnold ran aground in a brutal storm. Sailors' bodies washed ashore and were buried in a sixty-foot-wide mass grave at Burial Hill. Today, the spirits of these forlorn sailors still wander near their resting place, some still covered by the ice that took their lives.

At the base of Burial Hill stands a stone marker commemorating Metacom, known as King Philip, son of Massasoit. After his bloody war with the colonists, Metacom was captured and beheaded. His head was placed on a spike in Town Square, where it remained for twenty years. The heads of warriors Annawon and Tispaquin were later displayed the same way.

But ghosts are not the only beings haunting this cemetery. Creatures from Wampanoag folklore called Pukwudgies—imp-like beings with human features—terrorize those who cross their path before vanishing immediately after. At the foot of Burial Hill, the John Carver Inn was built on the site where medical students once robbed graves for cadavers. To this day, spirits roam the third floor, particularly tormenting guests in Room 309.