Union Cemetery & the White Lady

Easton, Connecticut, is the home of Union Cemetery, it contains graves and fieldstones dating as far back as the 1600's and up to and including present day burials. The Easton Baptist Church, which stands to the right of the cemetery was built in the 1840's, centuries after the first settlers were interred here (perhaps on an old church foundation?)

There are many stories attached to this plot of land, the most popular being that of "The White Lady", a ghostly figure that to this day her identity is unknown. She has been reportedly seen in and around the graveyard for over 60 years now. She appears in a white nightgown or wedding dress, and travels many miles between Union Cemetery and Stepney Graveyard (next to Our Lady of the Rosary Church) which is less than ten miles down the road. A fireman was said to have struck her after viewing the road in front of him take on an eerie red glow, and seeing a farmer with straw hat seated beside him in his truck. He looked up to see the white lady with hand outstretched and could not stop in time. He heard a thud and the truck was visibly dented. No sign of the woman was to be found however.

No one, to this day, has ever figured out who she really is, or was in her physical lifetime. There was some talk about a gravestone within Union cemetery, with a baby’s grave marker next to it, that seemed to indicate a woman dying shortly after the baby, and possibly she is searching in vain, grieving the loss, however that’s all speculation. Another possible identity of the woman, is that of Ellen Smathers, wife of John Smathers, the man who’s body was found in a sink-hole behind the church, weighed down with iron chunks in his pockets...Richard Dean Jason confessed to the murder. Yet another researcher feels the White Lady is the soul of Mrs. Knott, murdered by her adulterous lover, Elwood Wade sometime around the turn of the century. Mrs. Knott’s body was also found in the dark, wooded area of the sink-hole.

There are also tales of a ghostly “hobo”, a caretaker's spirit who, himself became obsessed with the spirit of a 200 year-dead trapper’s spirit he saw in the vicinity of the cemeteries hills, and now walks (or should I say glides?) the length of the wrought iron fence, Uniformed men who leave no tracks in the snow and actually talk with the witnesses, reports of men dressed very out of season, let alone century, who reply, when asked where they’re going, “straight through” - meaning straight through the man-made reservoir, animal noises, sounds of a baby crying, footsteps, stones and rocks being thrown by unseen hands, shadow ghosts and more! There are stories and reports of murder ( in 1935, one man, was set on fire by Earle Kellog and died directly across the street from the cemetery) and tragedy around Union Cemetery and the area of the church. Because of vandalism, occult activities and rituals, and general destructive behavior, the graveyard is strictly off-limits after dusk (The Easton police force DOES enforce this and hundreds of would be ghost hunters have received $77.00+ fines, and/or arrest).