They say the North Cemetery in Bowdoin is haunted.

They say a witch was buried there in the 1800s and now she roams the grounds.

They say lots of things.

“I used to live right near there,” says Michelle Hawkins, a 48-year-old member of The Committee of They. “There’s a curse in that cemetery.”

You can look it up online, if you want to. There are videos of a Maine Ghost Hunters team investigating the matter. The witch’s name was Elizabeth, they will tell you. She was hanged outside the church that used to abut the graveyard. She’s not happy about it.

“That’s what we’ve always heard,” says Robin Graziano, who lives near the cemetery. “Ever since we were little kids. Lizzie was a witch and now she haunts the cemetery.”

They have spoken.

Cemeteries provoke deep emotions. These cities of the dead are many things to different people – inspiration for poets, solitude for lovers, a silent history for scholars.

And creepy. As autumn creeps in and the shadow of Halloween falls across leaning headstones, it’s hard to escape the kind of mortal chill that haunted the more superstitious people of earlier centuries.

Our readers recently told us about their attractions to area cemeteries. Twisted, troubled attractions? You decide.

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Siiri Cressey: Koskela-Dunham Cemetery, South Woodstock

“I grew up near the very rural Koskela-Dunham Cemetery in South Woodstock,” says Siiri Cressey of Lewiston. “When I was little it was quite run down, with several broken headstones – real Hammer horror territory for a small child with a rampant imagination.

“One day I tripped over what turned out to be a piece of exposed natural rock. I was absolutely convinced it was a corner of an iron casket and that the resident (an appropriately flesh-gulping child-hating ghoul, I was certain) was going to come lurching out and get me. I ran out of the cemetery and at least half of the way home, not returning for days.”

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With that kind of tweak to the imagination, you’d think people would avoid cemeteries altogether. But they don’t. People don’t just brave Maine’s graveyards, they celebrate them.

On Oct. 1, the Maine Old Cemetery Association held an event in Newport with featured speakers and everything. And on Oct. 22, in Lewiston, a pair of authors will lead a group through the Garcelon Cemetery on Ferry Road.

Garcelon Cemetery, by the way, might be Lewiston’s first. It used to be located on the banks of the Androscoggin River, but in 1813, a flood washed away everything, including the bones of the Garcelon family.

David Garcelon: Garcelon Cemetery, Lewiston

“The flood washed up to Samuel Garcelon’s doorstep,” says David, one of the historians who will be leading the tour. “It took James’ and Deliverance’s graves and washed them right down the river.”

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Some cemeteries announce themselves with tall gates and waving flags. Others, you have to look for.

Daniel E. Ouellette: Wright’s Cemetery, Lewiston

“In 1983 I lived on No Name Pond Road and was walking past this area when I saw some younger kids coming out of the woods,” says Daniel E. Ouellette of Lewiston. “I was curious what was in there and climbed the embankment. I found a cemetery that had not been cared for in years. I started reading the headstones and found one marked ‘First Boy Born in Lewiston.’

“I contacted the Historical Society and asked them to look into it,” Ouellette says. “Years later, I happened to look up the hill as I passed by and saw that the area had been cleared and the fallen headstones were standing upright. . . . I think it is important that these cemeteries be honored, and I am hoping that 16 years after it was rediscovered again, there is more being done to preserve it.”

Visit Wright’s Cemetery today and you’ll find it in much better shape. Though many of the stones are broken, their inscriptions faded with time, the grounds are kept clear and flags are placed on the graves when appropriate.

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Jessica Hutchinson: Oak Hill Cemetery, Auburn

“I live in New Auburn and I take walks up to the one behind Walton School. There are some real old graves up there and there is also one with a bench and a sun dial in the middle of it. There is another one that looks like it got burnt. It is freaky. My friend and I go up usually at least twice a week, and on nights when we have babysitters we will sneak up there and use the Ouiji board. I am not allowed to store it in the house, so I leave it in the trunk of my car.”

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People like Hutchinson have it made. They live within walking distance of a graveyard. How convenient is that? Others have to go out of their way to find their necropolis of choice, at the risk of being thought ghoulish.

Randy Dustin: Curtis Hill Cemetery, Woodstock

“The Curtis Hill Cemetery in Woodstock is old and primitive. Many of the graves are depressions in the ground marked by big rocks at one end and small rocks at the other. The ghosts there are ancient and quite hillbillyish.

“Noah and Deborah and Morton and Dorcas are my great-great-great-great-great and great-great-great-great grandparents, respectively.

“Curtis Hill is remote country now. Imagine what it was like when Noah died in 1829.”

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Erin Cox: Demerritt Cemetery, Peru

“The large cemetery on Route 108 in Peru borders the old Peru school. My father taught school and coached for about 15 years there. When he passed from cancer in 2000 he was buried in the back row, which is about 20 feet from the school soccer field. Most of the caskets face the road; we had his turned around so he faced the school and soccer field. Not a lot of people know that fact. He was a huge influence in the town to a lot of student, especially those involved in sports.

“Washburns-Norlands cemetery in Livermore is another cool one. They take the college students who do the weekend course (at Norlands) up to it, and research the town figure (that each student will) portray for the weekend.”

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Tony Morin: St. Peter’s Cemetery, Lewiston

“We live roughly a half-mile from St. Peter’s cemetery in Lewiston. It is essentially a neighbor. I happen to have grandparents on both sides, and others that I know who are buried there. I will often go there walking or bike riding, and will sometimes stop by my relatives’ graves to remember them and say hello. I will also go through the cemetery to get to Switzerland Ave. for longer bike rides or to get to the river to fish. It is a regular part of our lives.

“The spookiest thing in the cemetery for me is the ‘Garden of Angels,’ which is where a large number of children are buried. Starts to get a little Stephen King for me at that point.

“I discussed this with my wife last night. She was a stay-at-home mom with our kids until they were school-aged. They would walk up there often. They occasionally had picnic lunches at the pond there.

“There is a nice bell structure near the mausoleum. She took them there when my twin boys were babies to see and hear the bells, which chime on the hour. They stood underneath on the hour. The bells were so loud, the kids freaked out and cried and screamed the entire stroller ride home. We still all laugh about it when we hear the bells from our house. The boys are 9 now.”

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Sarah Peters-Teixeira: Never met a cemetery she didn’t like

“I’ve always been strangely drawn to cemeteries. When I was younger my mom started to take me to really old ones where we would explore the graves and read the epitaphs. After a while we decided we should write down the ones we really liked. We called it ‘cemeterying.’ I have pages and pages of old epitaphs written down in notebooks. I love them. I wish they hadn’t gone out of style. Death seemed so much more personal back then. . . .

“There’s (a grave) in Buckfield that has an epitaph about a young woman who was ‘ripped from her grave by the grave robbers.’ It even says she was originally buried in Paris and they moved her body after she was robbed. . . .

“Anyway, I even have favorite cemeteries and have visited quite a few over the past 18 years or so. I don’t get to do it so much anymore now that I have young children, but it’s still something my mother and I talk about every summer.”

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Elizabeth: North Cemetery, Bowdoin

Back in Bowdoin, Elizabeth still roams the North Cemetery. Or at least her legend does.

The grave in question is protected by a square of trees. Walk into that square and there’s a sense of stepping into a dark place.

Just be careful where you put your feet.

“If you step on her grave, you’re doomed,” says Tony Lewis, of the Maine Ghost Hunters. “You’re doomed to death. That’s the folklore.”

His team made a video documentary about North Cemetery and about Elizabeth the witch. During the course of filming, Tony stepped on the grave.

“I’m still around,” he says. “And that was three years ago.”

Robin Graziano, who lives nearby, has gone out to the grave with a Ouija board. At night. In the dark. But not by herself.

“Alone?” Robin says, aghast. “God, no.”

Every time she tries to contact the spirit of the witch, something interrupts her.

Maybe it’s for the best.

“She was torn from her grave in Minot soon after she was buried, by the grave robbers.

“Cease ye pilgrims, cease to mourn,

“Press onward to the prize,

“Soon the Savior will return,

“Triumphant in the skies.”

Oct. 22: The Garcelon Cemetery

The Androscoggin Historical Society will sponsor a tour of the historic Garcelon Cemetery on Ferry Road in South Lewiston on Saturday, Oct. 22, at 1 p.m. If rain is forecast, the tour will be Sunday, Oct. 23 at 1 p.m..

Tour leaders will be local historians Doug Hodgkin, a retired professor of political science at Bates College who has written several books about local history, and David Garcelon, a retired land surveyor and civil engineer who is a descendant of the original settlers of Lewiston and has done extensive research into his family history. Both men are members of the Historical Society’s board of directors.

The cemetery is one of the earliest burying grounds of Lewiston and includes the sites of some of the earliest town leaders and other inhabitants of South Lewiston. Come to hear the stories of the fabled Garcelon family, of participants in the Civil War, the effects of the “year without a summer,” and even the solved mystery of a missing gravestone.

The cemetery is located across from 286 Ferry Road. To get there, follow Alfred Plourde Parkway south to River Street, follow River Street east until it becomes Ferry Road, and follow Ferry Road about a mile to the cemetery on the left. Cotton Road is on the right.

Cemeteries also attract vandals

“Cemeteries have been under attack by vandals for many years,” writes Marilyn Burgess of the Maine Old Cemetery Association. “Most are juveniles who are acting out but increasingly they are coming under attack by governments and individuals who want the land they occupy for other purposes.

“I belong to an organization – the Maine Old Cemetery Association – that believes it is right to honor those who built our towns, state and country and laid down the foundation for our own lives. The cemetery stones preserve a permanent record of their lives. Most of us believe it is OK to use the open space respectfully, to walk our dogs, jog, picnic and commune as long as we leave no residue behind.

“MOCA has had limited success in prosecuting vandalism, but one (case) that gives us great hope is the removal of the remains from the Phillips Cemetery in Saco. An amusement ride was actually built over the old cemetery. They now rest in a respectful place where family members can visit in peace. . . . This result, along with that of the arrest and prosecution of the Riverside vandals (in Lewiston) gives me hope. Don’t desecrate our burial grounds; it can be costly.”

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