Lore - Episode 17: Broken Fingernails

Episode Date: October 12, 2015

We leave our loved ones there after they’ve passed. We treat the space with reverence and solemn deference. Cemeteries are meant to be a final resting place. Sometimes, though, the ones who should be gone try to come back. ———————————————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  Lore News: www.theworldoflore.com/now  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For many cultures, the funeral is the last goodbye. It's the final chance to say what needs said or do what needs done in order to honor the ones we've lost. But while the methods and purpose behind these rituals can vary drastically from one culture to the next, one thing is common among the vast majority. The burial. We bury our dead. We've done it for an incredibly long time, and we've gotten very good at it.

Every year, archaeologists open new tombs that date back millennia, each one teaching us something new about the cultures that time has caused us to forget. And central to each of these discoveries is the burial itself. The techniques, the beliefs, the ritual, but it's not just about the dead. The practice of honoring and burying our loved ones is just as much about our own feelings of loss and grief as it is about our responsibility to care for those who've passed away. No place personifies the act of burial more than the local cemetery. With their green lawns and neat rows of pale stones, graveyards are unique among urban

constructions. They aren't respectfully avoided by some and obsessed over by others. But whatever beliefs you might hold or opinions you might have about them, graveyards are a special place. Stephen King explored the allure and power of the graveyard in his novel Pet Cemetery. In the story, the cemetery is a portal between our world and another. It's a place of transformation, of transition, and of mystery. And while we might not be digging shallow graves for our pets in hopes that they'll

return to us in the night, we've never lost our fascination with those places. Cemetery's have always been seen as the end of the journey. Whether you believe in a heaven or not, the graveyard is where most of us will go when our time is up. For some, however, the story doesn't always end there. Some things, it seems, can't be buried. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. For a very long time, burial in Europe was limited to churchyards.

It made sense, with a vast majority of Europeans holding to the Christian faith, all of them wanted to be buried close to their place of worship. But politics held sway even in these quiet, humble places of burial. Throughout Europe, it was common to find cemeteries that separated Protestant and Catholic graves. There's a touching example of this near the Dutch town of Roermund, where a couple was buried in the late 1800s. The husband had been Protestant, while the wife had held to the Catholic faith. Despite strict rules regarding their burial, the couple managed to cheat the system by

picking graves on opposite sides of the dividing wall. Their tall, headstones reached above the wall and included carved hands that reached out to touch each other. Economic status played a part in burial as well, though as wealthy enough could purchase space inside the church itself, while the less well-off had to settle for graves outside the church walls. And even then, social status determined where in the yard a person might be buried. The higher the status, the closer to the chapel.

But no one wanted to find themselves in the north corner. That was where people of uncertain birth, strangers from out of town, and stillborn infants were buried. Regardless, churches filled up fast, as did the yards around them. As the population of Europe swelled, space began to disappear at an alarming rate. At first, graves were simply moved closer together, like the parking lot at your local mall. Smaller spaces meant more occupants, and that was good for business.

But it only worked for a while. Next, coffins were stacked on a top the next, opting for the vertical approach. But this meant that church yards were rising as earth was filled in between the growing graves. Sometimes as high as 20 feet. Greyfriars Cemetery in Edinburgh, Scotland is a horrific example of this problem. It used to be a depression in the ground, but over time, it's become more of a hill. With more than half a million recorded burials, the elevation has literally risen over 15

feet, introducing problems that are unique to a graveyard so old and so full. According to reports, there's such a high concentration of human remains that on especially rainy days, remains that aren't sealed within a casket have a tendency to float to the surface, bursting through the mud like white teeth. All of this left cities in need of some seriously creative thinking. In some places, the solution they chose was a drastic one. In France, for example, the government actually had to step in. Church yards had gotten so full that they would often collapse outward, spilling soil

and human remains onto the streets. Walls were built around them. They rarely worked. The dead were getting out of hand, so to speak. In 1786, they removed all the bodies from Holy Innocence Cemetery in Paris and moved them to a series of unused stone quarries that became known as the catacombs. It's estimated that the catacombs hold close to six million bodies. Sometimes it wasn't a lack of space that ruined a cemetery, though, but a lack of popularity.

That's the fate that awaited the cemetery built on the former property of Sir William Ashhurst in the north end of London. And for the small hilltop community that once existed there, the Highgate Cemetery was established on the grounds of the Old Manor House, which had been demolished and replaced with a church in 1839. At first, the cemetery was popular. Karl Marx is buried there, as are many relatives of Charles Dickens and Dante Rosetti. But when the owners lost money and fell on hard times, the graveyard was left to the

elements. Mountains and crypts became overgrown with vegetation, and sometimes trees would sprout up right through the graves themselves. Highgate is a wonderful example of what we all imagine a haunted cemetery might look like. Filmmakers and authors have been drawn to it for decades, tapping into its arresting visual atmosphere to create works of Gothic horror and fantasy. It was even the inspiration behind Neil Gaiman's beautiful novel, The Graveyard Book.

But while there are plenty of stories about the history of graveyards throughout Europe and America, cemeteries have always been known for something darker, something less tangible than what we can see above ground. Perhaps it's all those neat rows of bone white headstones, or the notion that hundreds of bodies lay waiting beneath our feet. For the reason, it's in the local graveyard more than any other place that we find rumors of the other worldly and unexplainable. Inside those walls, between the pale stones and dark trees, almost everyone has heard

tales of those who refuse to stay in the grave. Buried or not, sometimes the past is too traumatic to leave us. Just south of Chicago, between the curving arms of I-80 and I-294, is a graveyard known for a level of activity unusual in a place of the dead. Bachelor's Grove Cemetery isn't big. There are only 82 plots there, and many of those have never been used. But that hasn't stopped the stories. It's said that the famous gangster Al Capone once used the pond nearby as a dumping place

for the bodies of those he killed. Other rumors make reference to satanic rituals and meetings that have taken place in the graveyard over the years, but there are those who swear they have seen unusual things there. The most famous sighting has been called the White Lady, the ghostly image of a woman that was sent to appear only during the full moon. In 1991, the Sun-Times actually featured a photo of the White Lady on the front cover, taken by a researcher on one of her visits. The woman appears to be semi-transparent, sitting on a tombstone near the trees, and

dressed in white. Other visitors have seen glowing orbs and apparitions, and even vehicles and a farmhouse that seemed to fade in and out of existence. The site is off-limit to visitors now, but its remained favorite haunt, no pun intended, of ghost hunters across the country. In 1863, an outbreak of smallpox moved through a Civil War POW camp in Columbus, Ohio. A camp held close to 10,000 Confederate soldiers, and thousands of them died from the epidemic. As a result, the Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery was formed, an unusual site so far north into

Union territory. Miles away in New Madrid, Missouri, a Confederate sympathizer sent his young daughter north to avoid the destruction of the war. Louisiana Briggs settled into Ohio and eventually married a Union veteran, but she apparently never lost touch with her southern roots. It was said that, later in life, she would often visit the Camp Chase Cemetery, where she would place flowers on various graves there. She wore a white veil each time she went, an effort to hide her face.

Nevertheless, she acquired a reputation around town as the Gray Lady, and was known for her passion for the old burial ground. She passed away in 1950, but flowers would still appear regularly on the graves there. Visitors to Camp Chase have heard the sounds of a woman weeping quietly, while others have seen the figure of a woman in a veil. Some drew Louisiana Briggs to that location. That much is clear. According to the stories, though, she never left.

Across the country in Connecticut, yet another graveyard place hosts to a mysterious story. Mary Hart was born in New Haven in 1824 and lived a very modest life there. She was a corset maker and machine stitcher by trade, working hard to support her family. On October 15, 1872, Mary fell into a death-like state from unknown causes. She was only 47, young, even for the late 19th century, and this tragedy rocked her family to the core. By midnight, Mary had expired, and her grieving family set about to arrange for a quick and immediate burial.

There was a lot of pain, I can imagine, and they simply wanted to move on. It's said that Mary's spirit still wanders Evergreen Cemetery, close to the site of her home on Winthrop Avenue. More than one story has been told about drivers pulling over to pick up a hitchhiking woman, only to have her disappear. Others say Mary was a witch, although you didn't have to look far in the late 1800s to find a woman who had been accused of something like that. According to the stories, local college students have frequently visited Mary's grave, which

is said to be cursed. Anyone who visits her grave at midnight, according to legend, will meet a horrible fate. As a result, most people refer to her today as Midnight Mary. There are no records of New Haven College students who've died after visiting Mary's grave site. But whether or not the stories are rooted in fact, it hasn't stopped them from spreading. Mary still has one foot in our world, it seems. It's just not clear who's keeping her here.

South Cemetery in Portsmouth, New Hampshire is really a collection of many smaller graveyards. It's the site of the oldest burial ground in town dating back to the 1600s, and it's a wonderful mixture of styles and centuries. Together, the Alburn Cemetery, the Proprietor's Burial Ground, Sagamore Cemetery, and Harmony Hill all combine to showcase everything from an Egyptian-style sarcophagus to winged skulls and Victorian funerary imagery. It's a peaceful place, and much of the grounds have been planted with flowering trees, creating a park-like atmosphere.

But that wasn't always the case. In the 1700s, South Cemetery served double duty as both a graveyard and the site of several public executions. All of them were hangings, and more than a few of them were women, and the reasons were often tragic. The early 18th century was a very different era from our own, and the law books were filled with rules that might seem barbaric or cruel by today's standards. Provincial laws at the time required capital punishment for a wide assortment of crimes,

close to 600 of them in fact, including murder, rape, abortion, bestiality, burglary, treason, and counterfeiting. Another capital crime, though, was known as concealment. If a woman found herself pregnant outside of marriage in the mid-1700s, her life was effectively over. Social stigma, loss of employment, fines, and even physical punishment were all expected to follow upon discovery of adultery and the possible resulting bastard birth. And so, to avoid this fate, it had become common for women in that situation to hide

their pregnancy, and then abandon the baby to die of neglect and exposure. This was concealment, and it was the situation that a woman from Southampton, New Hampshire found herself in in the spring of 1768. Ruth Blay was just 25 and split her time between teaching in the nearby towns and working as a seamstress. She was single and poor, but she did her best to hide the pregnancy for as long as she could. No one knows when she gave birth to the child. We don't know if she labored alone, with no hand to hold or companion to help her through

it. All history remembers is the baby. But even then, there are still questions. According to Ruth, the baby had been stillborn. That didn't erase her crime of adultery, of course, or the stigma that was sure to follow, but it did mean that she didn't kill the child. She had been afraid, and so she buried the tiny body beneath the floorboards of a local barn, most likely the site of one of her traveling classrooms.

And that, she thought, was the end of it. But what Ruth didn't know was that some of her local students had watched her. They didn't see the birth itself. They didn't feel her pain, loss, fear, and hopelessness. All they saw was a young woman placing a body in a small space beneath a loose board. They saw a crime, and so they reported it. Ruth was soon arrested by Isaac Brown, the local constable, and was quickly brought to trial.

A jury of 16 was formed, all men, of course, and they soon ruled that the child had died by violent birth. Ruth, they said, was a liar and a murderer. Ruth was held at the constable's home until she could be transported to the jail in Portsmouth. But she was still recovering from the birth, and so she remained there for over a month while her body healed. By July 19, she had formally been accused, and two weeks later she was brought before the provincial court.

She pleaded innocent, of course, but no one listened. Her final trial date was set for nearly two months later, toward the end of September. I can't imagine how lonely she must have felt. How hopeless. Ruth didn't have a chance. I think it's safe to assume she knew that. Society wasn't kind to women in her position, and when you added in the dead infant, well, the Ruth was pretty sure how it was going to end.

Her trial began on the afternoon of September 21, 1768, and a little over 12 hours later, a 12-man jury handed down the verdict. Guilty. She was, according to their instructions, to hang by her neck until dead. But not just yet. No, the royal governor of New Hampshire, a man named John Wentworth, issued three consecutive reprieves, postponing her execution. He said it was to give her time to prepare herself for death, but I can't help but wonder

if it was really just one more punishment. Rather than walking to the gallows before the end of September, Ruth would have to wait three long months. Just before noon, on December 30th, over 1,000 people gathered at Gallows Hill in South Cemetery, and it snowed earlier that day, and now a cold, freezing rain was covering everything in a layer of ice. Sheriff Packard, the man presiding over the execution, had Ruth placed atop the back of a wagon, a rope draped over her head.

Parents stood with their arms around their children, children who were craying their necks to catch a glimpse of the woman about to die. There are rumors that a pardon was on its way from the governor. That Sheriff Packard was in a hurry to eat his lunch, and so he rushed the execution, rather than waiting for the governor's letter to arrive. At noon, the horses pulling the wagon were driven away from the tree, and Ruth's blade fell off the back, where her body swung slowly at the end of the noose. She died moments later.

Those same rumors say the governor's stave execution did arrive, just moments after Ruth's body stopped moving, but there's no record of a pardon. Instead of freedom, Ruth was given an unmarked grave, about 300 feet north of the small pond in the middle of the cemetery. Today, visitors to the pond report anomalies in their photographs, ghostly images, orbs, and indefinable shapes. Some say that their cameras stopped working altogether when there. According to local legend, a pair of glowing lights has been seen there, and some think

it's Ruth and her infant child. Between life and death, between the places most familiar to us, and that vast expanse of the unknown, sits the graveyard. It has represented the beginning of a journey for countless cultures across the history of mankind. From the Egyptians to the Khans, from ancient Europe to modern America, the cemetery is a constant thread, tying us all together. All philosophy aside, these are places born out of loss and filled with deep emotion.

And so it's no wonder that so many stories exist of the ones who refuse to stay buried. Maybe ghosts are real after all, or maybe we just wish they were, or perhaps it's both. One final note, Midnight Mary, the New Haven corset maker who fell into a coma at the age of 47, was buried the following day, on October 16, 1872. That night after the funeral was over and her extended family had traveled back to their homes, Mary's aunt had a horrible nightmare. In her dream, she saw Mary still alive in her coffin, scratching at the lining in an effort to get out.

She was screaming and moaning with desperation, and the image of that stayed with Mary's aunt long after she awoke. So much so that she managed to convince both her family and the authorities to exhume Mary's grave, after the coffin was removed from the earth and then opened it. What they found inside would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Mary's corpse had moved. Take pride in your home with the new Swiffer Power Mop. The new Swiffer Power Mop gives you a mop and bucket clean in just half the time, leaving

you more time to enjoy your home with the ones you love most. Swiffer is proud to sponsor I Heart Radio's Can't Cancel Pride 2023, an evening honoring the LGBTQ Plus community and celebrating organizations creating a more inclusive and equal world. Learn more at Can'tCancelPride.com. Her hands were covered in blood, and many of her fingernails were broken. The reason was clear after examining the coffin's lid. The cloth lining had been shredded. Apparently, Mary had finally awoken from her coma, and in her panic, she had tried to claw

her way out. This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Mankey. Lore is much more than a podcast. There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both.

Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now. And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi.

And as always, thanks for listening. I'll see you in the next one.