So I figured... why not start with something good... juicy... old and dead. Maybe those adjectives don't really mesh together well, but this is all of those things. This is the stuff Urban Legends are born from: An unmarked, hidden cemetery tucked deep into the woods behind another cemetery. Not only is it old, unmarked, and tucked deep into the woods, it is a prisoner cemetery. Yes, now we have a blog entry.
Here is the link to the map so you could go and find it yourself.
This is Goose Hill Cemetery in Rutland. It is, in its own right, a good old cemetery. It dates from the early 1700's through the 1800's. The ground is so thick with moss that I literally sunk into it as Henry, Nora and I examined the stones. It is old and out of the way, so many of the stones are broken, but there is something special about these old cemeteries. The flowers here aren't in pots. Some have been
planted years ago in front of the stones and have come back every year. Others weren't planted at all. Wild flowers have taken over where human interest has faded and lady slippers and wild columbine now mark a more wild remembrance. If you have never
investigated the old cemeteries of Central Massachusetts, you are missing out. There are gems hidden throughout: murderers, witches, victims... all the makings of a Stephanie Meyer best seller. This one though, only has hints of the past. One stone told of a man with four wives. Depending on your outlook, this man's life was either really good or really bad :).
Directly beside the cemetery is a small cart road. It is unmarked except for a small Rutland Historical Marker that could easily be taken as representing the Goose Hill Cemetery, and maybe it is. But, this road leads to another cemetery tucked away in the woods behind the Goose Hill Cemetery. There is no sign here. No way of knowing that anything is back there. Just another of those barely-there cart roads that branch off of nearly all of the roads in Central Mass. The road eventually turns into a path and the path eventually fades to nearly not a path. About a quarter of a mile in the way opens up to a small clearing. Even this is overgrown now and if not for the Boy Scouts of troupe 141, you could almost
walk right over the small rise of earth that was the Rutland Prison Camps Burial Ground. I say almost because, if you were paying attention at all, you might see the indentations in the ground where 59 prisoners were buried between the years 1900 and 1933. That, by the way, strikes me as a lot of dead prisoners for thirty years at one prison. A bit of research unveils that this prison was an experiment. Prisoners with tuberculosis were sent here and were given instructions for farming and for clean living. There were 100 prisoners imprisoned here. More than half of them succumbed to their disease the rest... potentially, through the care they were given and the healthy lifestyle the lived, lived through it.
The grounds here are over grown with shrubs and small trees. The cemetery isn't protected at all and the markers, 59 iron crosses shown in the old picture here, are now gone. I am sure they are decorating some washed up goth rocker's wanna be apartment somewhere. What is worse, is that someone has
been digging at the graves. The picture doesn't show it very clearly, but this one was definitely dug out. The hole is about five feet deep. Unmarked graves... prisoners dying in discontent... away from their families... disturbed graves... are you with me here?
In all truth, the pervading emotion that I felt, apart from unbridled frustration regarding the clouds of mosquitoes hovering around the woods at this time of year, was sadness. This part of Rutland's past is falling away. Yes they were prisoners, but as William Turner, the superintendent of the Rutland Prison Camps, held as his central ideology, they were people first. He treated them with kindness and with decency and respect. Perhaps effort should be made to continuing his methods.
