This Secret Massachusetts Cemetery Has A Haunting History
Sophia
Author
Right in central Massachusetts, there’s an old, unmarked and eerily beautiful cemetery that almost everyone seems to have forgotten. The coolest thing about this cemetery is that it’s actually hidden behind another, slightly larger graveyard that camouflages its existence.
Goose Hill Cemetery is located in Rutland. The first bodies were buried there in the early 1700s, and the most recent markers date from the 1800s. This place has a lot of wild beauty. Flowers that were once planted in front of graves have spread and carpeted some areas of the cemetery with blooms. One headstone appears to be that of a man with four wives.
However, Goose Hill isn’t the cemetery we’re after. To find the even more hidden graveyard, follow the small cart road beside the cemetery for about quarter of a mile. The road is pretty small, and eventually turns into little more than an overgrown path, but if you follow it all the way you’ll suddenly find yourself in a peculiar clearing.
In 1907, the Rutland Prison Camp opened a tuberculosis hospital. Fifty-nine patient-prisoners were buried behind Goose Hill Cemetery between 1907 and 1933. Rutland Prison Camp was actually a tuberculosis experiment, where the effects of sunlight, farm work and healthy eating on tuberculosis were studied. Out of the 100 prisoners at the camp, only 41 survived their illness.
Iron crosses once marked the locations of the bodies, but those have since disappeared. There have even been some grave robberies, and at least one grave appears to have been recently dug up.
For another glimpse into the hidden past of Massachusetts, check out this creepy local insane asylum with a dark history.
Directions to Goose Hill Cemetery are here.
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