Union Cemetery

Dating back to the 1760s, Union Cemetery in Easton is considered one of the most haunted cemeteries in the United States. Famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren called it one of the most haunted places around.

Union Cemetery stands at the intersection of Sport Hill Road, Stepney Road, and Westport Road in Easton, Connecticut, enclosed by stone walls and wrought iron fencing. The oldest surviving headstone dates to 1761, when Ebenezer Hubbell was interred here, though historians agree that unmarked graves in the northeastern corner predate the town's formal recognition by the Colony of Connecticut. Revolutionary War veteran Samuel Seeley, who died at the Battle of Ridgefield in 1777, rests among the colonial families whose names—Sturges, Lyon, Sherwood, Silliman, Coley—trace Easton's founding.

Connecticut demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren called Union Cemetery "one of the most haunted cemeteries in the United States," documenting their investigations in their 1992 book "Graveyard: True Hauntings from an Old New England Cemetery." The Warrens, who lived less than a mile away in Monroe and later inspired "The Conjuring" film franchise, investigated the cemetery for years.

The most famous specter is the "White Lady," described as a woman in her late twenties or thirties with long, dark hair cascading over her shoulders, wearing a diaphanous white nightgown or Victorian wedding dress. Several theories attempt to explain her identity. One points to Harriet R. Seeley, who died on May 28, 1853—just eight days after giving birth to a son who also perished. She was only 24 years old; her epitaph reads, "Nay do not weep / You'll all come soon." Local historian Colin Boyce suggests the White Lady may be "an amalgam" of multiple women who died young during an era when childbirth was the leading cause of death for women of reproductive age. Other legends claim she was murdered in the 1940s, or that an Easton Baptist Church minister killed her and disposed of her body in a sinkhole behind the church.

Ed Warren captured the White Lady on video on September 1, 1990, at 2:40 a.m., his seventh night of filming in the cemetery. Warren described hearing "a woman weeping" and watching "hundreds of ghost lights floating around and forming into a figure of a woman." The apparition weaved between headstones toward the gate before dissolving into the ground. The footage, lasting nearly six seconds, remains secured in the Warren Occult Museum.

Local artist Roderick Vescey reported an encounter while driving past the cemetery on Route 59. As he entered a patch of low-hanging mist, an elderly man wearing a bowler hat appeared in his passenger seat, staring sadly ahead before vanishing. When Vescey looked back at the road, the White Lady stood mere feet from his hood. Unable to brake in time, he drove directly through her, later describing "a giant rush of wind" across his body and a reddish tint to his vision for several miles.

In 1993, firefighter Glenn Pennell was driving his Ford F-150 to divert traffic from a transformer explosion in Monroe when his passenger officer yelled, "Watch out!" Pennell saw a woman with long brown flowing hair in a white Victorian nightgown standing in the center of the road near Stepney Cemetery. He caught the surprised look on her face before impact. The collision left a large dent in his vehicle, but when he stopped to help her, no one was there.

The cemetery harbors a second entity known as "Red Eyes." Visitors report glowing crimson eyes peering from the underbrush behind the graveyard, accompanied by the sensation of hot breath on their necks. When witnesses flee, footsteps follow. Legend attributes Red Eyes to Earle Kellogg, a man who was set on fire and burned to death across the street from the cemetery in 1935, though paranormal investigators have found no documentation confirming this story. Other reported phenomena include soldiers on horseback, giggling children, unexplained fog, glowing orbs, and EVP recordings of screaming women.

The cemetery's reputation has made it a magnet for ghost hunters, prompting the Easton Police Department to deem it off-limits after dusk. Vandalism has also taken its toll: in August 2012, fifty-one headstones were toppled or snapped, causing over $50,000 in damage. In July 2019, forty more stones were destroyed. The Historical Society of Easton now leads preservation efforts, allowing visitors to adopt headstones for restoration. Despite its troubled history, Union Cemetery remains an active burial ground—its residents, both living and spectral, continuing their eternal vigil.