Cumberland Cemetery and Old Salem Cemetery hauntings

by John
(JBLM, Washington)

I remember my first experience with ghost hunting or hauntings was around when the first paranormal activity movie came out. I was at a friend's house for Thanksgiving and they were all drinking beer, I wasn't. They were talking about ghost hunting and about Cumberland Cemetery, which is a very popular spot for ghost hunting and is 2 miles away from my house. They asked if I wanted to go since I've never been there and I said yeah sure I'll go. The story I was told was that a little girl a long time ago got very sick and died and was buried in the cemetery. Her mom couldn't deal with the pain of losing her, so she went to a barn behind the graveyard and hung herself. The father couldn't take losing both of them so he went to a barn down the road and shot himself. So on our way there we stopped at the barn where the dad died. Now, all we had were the light off our cellphone screens as flashlights and couldn't see too well. One of my friends looked into a small room and claimed he saw blood on the walls (come to find out it was just wood stain or something). Either way, still creepy as we also heard slight tapping noises. We continued to the cemetery and wanted to test a rumor that if you leave your car doors unlocked, they will be locked when you return. We went in and right away they were freaking out saying they were hearing growling. I didn't hear growling but what i did hear was something moving in the leaves on the ground. Not like a scurrying critter, but more like someone walking through the leaves. We were on the gravel path so i knew it wasn't one of them. My friend Anthony lit a smoke to calm his nerves and after a while his cigarette just went out. I figured wind blew it out but they were still freaking out. He flicked the burnt out cigarette and went to take a smoke from behind his ear and both of the ones he had were gone and we could not find them at all. As we continued, one of the guys asked me if my vision was blurry like his was or if it was from drinking and sure enough I looked around and my vision was pretty blurry, didn't think too much of it. We kept on walking and hit a very cold spot and Anthony figured it was the little girl and kept telling her he wanted to go where her mom died. As he was saying that the wind started blowing so hard our hoodies got caught like parachutes. After we told him to shut up he did and the wind stopped blowing. As we decided to turn back we saw something behind his ear and we pulled it out, it was the burnt out smoke he flicked away about 20 minutes earlier. So we booked it out of there and Anthony swore he felt something touch him. We got to his car to find it wasn't unlocked anymore. His door was locked and he does not have a remote for that car. Even more freaked out, we got in his car and hauled ass away only to almost hit and albino looking dog with red eyes that was just standing in the road looking at us then chased us and disappeared.

I've had a couple more experiences with this site like I wanted to take a girl I was with there since she was into that and before I would even pull my truck over she would start crying and saying she feels so much pain. My latest experience was on one of my last days at home before I went off to basic training. Me and two friends went to the cemetery and parked across the street. We got out and waited a minute for my truck lights to go out(Didn't want any visitors from the boys in blue). We were just casually walking down the path when i told them to stop and kept telling them to quit moving. One of them said none of them were moving at all. That's when i heard footsteps on the gravel behind us. We said forget this and ran out of there and that was when I noticed the interior lights in my truck were on. My remote i had for my truck hadn't worked in years so I knew i didn't accidentally hit a button. We hopped in my truck and my two friends noticed what looked like hand prints from a baby all over my windows. We hauled ass out of there and couldn't believe what happened.

Now with Old Salem I've heard rumors about dead KKK members being buried there and haunting the place and headstones being tipped when nobody was there. But the story we heard was apparently a young baby about 1 year old died in a house fire and if you stand next to her grave you cant light a match or lighter. We went looking for it there during the day and we found one of a small infant but not sure if it's the same one from the story. Anyways, me and my girlfriend and same two friends from second Cumberland visit were standing in a circle and in the middle of the air was just a little bit colder than normal. That's when my girl said she felt something beside her and we felt around her the air was colder on that side compared to the other. That was about it for that visit and as we were leaving all of them said they saw something standing at the gate watching us, I never saw it. We went back later that night, my two friends went into the cemetery while me and my girl stayed in the truck. We were suppose to be meeting my friend's mom there to go ghost hunting with us. My girlfriend kept saying she felt something standing beside her side of the truck and for some reason her side of the truck was warmer than mine. I didn't see or hear or feel anything but her expressions were freaking me out. Well I ended up seeing a pair of headlights coming down the road and waved them down only to realize I waved a local PD squad car down. He was cool and actually said he has sen some pretty weird stuff out there before and just told us to go home.

So that's my ghost story, still not a full believer but I'm not gonna say that they don't exist. Next time I have a chance to take some leave and get a video camera I'll try to get some video for you guys. Hope you enjoy my little adventure. These experiences happened in my hometown in Illinois, I am now stationed at JBLM, WA and hopefully can see some spooky stuff here.