Caged Burials ~ Vampires in Pennsylvania?

welcome to the hooded grave cemetery here in the back country of pennsylvania got quite an interesting uh story or legend about this place we'll share that in a moment yes so welcome once again to pennsylvania got the little creepy sign behind me there i wasn't expecting that sign there to look kind of creepy like it does i think this used to be called the mount zion cemetery but now it's called the hooded grave cemetery and there's a reason for that but anyway um yeah the other night i was doing some research on uh every now and then i like to do some haunted stories like you know and i was seeing if there was any vampire stories here in pennsylvania and this cemetery popped up my research so kind of interesting i had heard and when i came upon the the some of the research for this cemetery it uh it uh sprung some memories i guess you could stay in my mind i had watched some other videos about this place but we're here for ourselves today so here's a quick view of the cemetery just a small little one and that is not a church back there that is someone's house right next to this cemetery but the graves of interest right there in the middle there's one right there in the middle has like a cage over it and there's another caged one over there quite the unique type of burial caged burials they're called you can clearly see the one right here so there's one there and there's a second one just up the way there there used to be a third one but i think that the cage over that one deteriorated too much and they tore down all right well let's let's just quick look around the cemetery first before i share the uh creepy stories behind these caged burials yeah so there some of these tombstones are laying down got some oldies here though this is elizabeth thomas born 1822 died in 1858 so these are some older ones because a lot of these have become overgrown here's ann thomas who died in 1856 here's the one caged one sarah ann consort of what does it say ranslow what does that name boon looks like she died in 1852. only 22 years old consorts probably probably were not married there's a look at that cage over sarah's burial plot there they're quite you know the ornate little well not little but wrought iron i guess cage is pretty sturdy here's the other one same design so this one has little uh kind of eagles attached to the top of it this one just says abt on the outside but there's a grave stone in the middle here kind of busted up i see a date of 1852 looks like the last name of thomas all right they are unique i know i've never seen these anywhere else i don't know that they occur anywhere else in pennsylvania actually from what i've read we are near uh what's called catawisa pennsylvania let's just look at a few of these other ones while we're here got another sarah died in 1818 yeah some of these don't say too much got a jake up there i want a quick look at these up here i know some of you like when i look at the tombstones and i know some of you don't but i kind of like to just see all who's here looks like this one's broken here we got another jacob i say 18 there's an older date up there all right let's quick go over here we got a william son of george and elizabeth died in 1853 age one year oh yeah look there's a little lamb up there i mentioned that a book that someone got me a little while ago on cemetery symbols and we see a little lamb usually means it was a child and if you look at the ears yep only one year old here's one with a flower symbols looks like elizabeth died in 1858 she was only 20 years old and the flower is in full bloom and i remember from that book that means she died in the full bloom of life she was only 20 years old all right i'm going to set you down on the tripod we're going to talk a little bit about these caged burials and some of the legends behind them all right before i actually get you on the tripod you know some of these there's three of these stories are kind of creepy as to why you have these caged burials the fourth one the non-creepy one unfortunately is probably the true one story but we will share the creepy versions with you as well but who knows you know these burials date back to the you know obviously the mid-1800s people were a lot more superstitious back then so all right pretty cool spot all right so i've got you up in the tripod i'm here sitting right by sarah and behind me so let's talk a little bit about these caged burials and some of the theories behind them uh like i said this is they're pretty unique to pennsylvania i the research i did uh doesn't look like they're anywhere else you might be able to find them in up in new england or over in europe maybe but as far as pennsylvania goes this is it oh and i do want to mention too that i'm not the first person to film here and you can find other articles online about this cemetery cemetery so i am not in any way claiming to have discovered this place on my own i've found this place by looking at you know other people's videos and websites so i just want to throw that out there every now and then people get upset at me claiming i'm stealing their stuff but anyway all right so yeah cage why would you put a cage a wrought iron cage over someone's burial site so like i said there were four different reasons that i came up with in my research and like i said the first three were kind of interesting last one not so much but unfortunately the last one might be the the true one first one is vampires i think i put when i put that in the uh yeah what he called the thumbnail picture for this video yeah one theory is that these people buried like poor sarah back here was a vampire and of course these cages were put over top the grave to keep them from like when they came out of the ground that night to attack people they couldn't get out of the cages they would be trapped in there so the cages were meant to keep the vampires in the ground so that's kind of interesting um you don't come across too many vampire stories in pennsylvania i think like i said begin this video i was researching were there any vampire stories in pennsylvania and there were just very few but this is one of them that these people like sarah were vampires and these cages were meant to keep them in the ground so the vampire one is interesting but unfortunately it's probably not true the second reason is grave robbers that because back in the 1800s even earlier you know they would rob graves for the bodies and they would take them to like places where you know doctors would you know cut them open to study the bodies and stuff and that was you know cutting people's body dead people's bodies open and stuff was considered desecration back then and uh so you couldn't just do it legally so they would rob graves like this and the cages were meant to keep were meant to keep grave robbers from easily accessing the burial sites and actually the research on that is kind of actually true to some cases you know some cemeteries would have these they would put it over the grave for like a couple months until the body was no longer useful for uh dissecting and then they'd move it onto a newer grave so that's another possible theory as well protect from grave robbers another one was to protect from like wolves and stuff that would come and dig up the freshly buried bodies and eat them so yeah but uh i'll tell you a little bit what i think of those different theories but let me tell you the last one here in a moment so the last theory and the mo and the least interesting one is that these cages over these burial sites are just merely for decorative purposes their decoration they actually are pretty they look nice and that's the only reason they're here so that's the fourth and probably the most plausible explanation yeah so stories of vampires and grave robbers and wolves and all that kind of stuff make for uh make for great stories but probably in this case these cages are for just for decorative use uh we're like this is near katowice pennsylvania kind of in the middle of nowhere i don't really know that this would be a prime area for grave robbing back in the day and uh if it was so common for wolves to dig up burial sites i think you'd see these cages a lot more commonly in places like this and as far as vampires go it would make a cool story but you know most likely not true i don't really know that a cage like that would keep a vampire out anyway i'm not really sure how deep the cage is probably just sitting right on top i think if a vampire wanted to get out of this cage it could that is if you even believe in vampires but as you can see they are they are quite decorative though i feel like the little eagles on are top pretty and they've seen they've seen some damage over the years looks like people have bent the wires and stuff but as always in the comments section you can let me know what you think of these caged burials just a small little cemetery here at least somewhat maintained and if you are interested in visiting this place right there is the junction of apple drive and uh longwood road and apple drive takes you to route 487 and we like i said we are just south of katowice here in pennsylvania as you can see the cemetery is right up here there's that house back there i kind of pulled up this little like a little i don't know if that's part of the cemetery land or not but there's a little driveway on the other side but it's marked private drive because there's i guess a private residence up there so if you do come here just be respectful of not just the cemetery but the people who live in the house over there as well so don't come here and do uh stupid stuff but it is an interesting place to visit all right i'm gonna walk around just a little bit more on my own take a few more pictures and i'll get back with you all right so like i said interesting spot it would be cooler if the like what should i say the ambiance of the place was a little different we are right next to the road and a private residence but you know if this was these caged burials were like out in an abandoned cemetery out in the middle of the woods somewhere like that it would be a lot more uh you know creepy would have that more creepy vibe but it is a well-maintained cemetery for the most part with houses and fields all around so but still cool location i have definitely never seen caged grave sites like that before so all right it's gonna be a hot day i'm gonna try and get some hiking in here as well as long as i don't melt we've been having it's been horribly hot it was like 95 degrees yesterday and not so bad at the moment right now anyway that's nothing to do with this video so i will uh say goodbye to you here once again thanks for watching and once again if you do come here just please be respectful of the place um that way the place stays open for other people to visit as well you know people come here and damage stuff and do stupid stuff then yeah ruins it for everybody all right thanks for watching i'll see you around

Channel: The Wandering Woodsman

Views: 285,025

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Id: vDzis1U69Sk

Length: 14min 13sec (853 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020