Lorimier Cemetery

The oldest cemetery in Cape Girardeau, established in 1808 by the wife of Louis Lorimier, the city's founder and Spanish commandant. The cemetery contains graves from the earliest days of European settlement along the Mississippi River.

Established in 1808, Lorimier Cemetery is the oldest burial ground in Cape Girardeau and one of the most historically significant in all of Missouri. It is named for Louis Lorimier, the French-Canadian fur trader and diplomat who founded Cape Girardeau and served as the Spanish commandant of the region. Lorimier wanted his wife Charlotte Pemanpicha Bougainville -- who was of Shawnee and Delaware heritage -- to be buried according to the customs of her people, and she became the first confirmed burial in the cemetery. Louis himself was laid to rest beside her when he died in 1812.

Over two centuries, more than 6,500 souls have been interred at Lorimier Cemetery, including approximately 1,200 Civil War soldiers from both Union and Confederate forces. The cemetery is believed to sit on land that was originally a Native American burial ground, adding layers of spiritual history that reach back centuries before European settlement. What visitors see today is only a fraction of the cemetery's true extent -- over the years, portions have been built over, and legend holds that a mass grave occupies the southeast corner, containing the remains of passengers and crew who perished on the Missouri River's treacherous steamboats.

The cemetery's most famous paranormal phenomenon is the Tapping Ghost, an entity that has been reported by visitors for generations. Those who walk among the old headstones frequently feel something tapping them firmly on the shoulder -- once, twice, three times -- with the tapping repeating insistently until the visitor becomes frightened enough to flee. Others report having their hair tugged sharply by invisible hands, or feeling their clothing yanked from behind as if someone is trying to get their attention.

Beyond the Tapping Ghost, visitors have reported floating orbs of light drifting among the graves at night, moving with apparent purpose between the headstones before vanishing. Perhaps most unsettling are the accounts of a ghostly funeral procession -- translucent figures in period clothing who walk in solemn formation toward the river, as if reenacting burials from centuries past. The procession appears without warning and moves silently through the cemetery before dissolving into the darkness.

The layered history of Lorimier Cemetery -- Native American sacred ground, French colonial outpost, Civil War burial site, and steamboat graveyard -- has created what many paranormal researchers consider a nexus of spiritual energy. With thousands of burials spanning over two hundred years and the unquiet dead of wars, epidemics, and river disasters, it is perhaps no surprise that the cemetery remains one of Missouri's most actively haunted locations.