![]() I went to Midnight Mary’s grave for the first time today, and while it’s fascinating and enigmatic, I think some of the stories are exaggerated. If you follow the outer cemetery road, it’s about three quarters of the way up the east side, on the left and very easily spotted. Mary’s tombstone is located on the east side of the cemetery, near Winthrop Avenue. Its open to the public during normal visiting hours. If You Go: Evergreen Cemetery is located at the junction of U.S 1 and Route 10 in New Haven, right off Ella Grasso Boulevard. Maybe there’s not something about Mary after all? (If you enjoy this sort of artwork, a visit to Evergreen Cemetery is highly recommended.) We also didn’t experience anything out of the ordinary, but we weren’t there in the middle of the night, either. ![]() We didn’t notice anything unusual about the grave, as it seems like another unique stone in a cemetery full of amazing funerary sculpture. The first thing we noticed is that her stone is a lot bigger than it looks in pictures - rather than a common narrow slab, it’s a huge granite block! Our Damned Experience: We visited Mary on a snowy day in January 2009. The good people of New Haven have always been happy to continue sharing the supernatural stories of Midnight Mary, the woman whose legacy features a cursed gravestone and a tale of woe - a damned damsel, to be sure. Of course, none of these stories can be confirmed (or denied). Since New Haven is renowned as a college town, there was always a student or two who scoffed at the story and tried to stay the night in the cemetery, only to be found dead the next morning, a victim of the murderous spirit of Midnight Mary. The final story is also from the urban legend files, basically going along the lines of Mary having been a witch in life and her grave being cursed - anyone who was there at midnight would meet a terrible end when the witch rose from the dead. A variation on the old “disappearing hitchhiker” tale, a woman fitting Mary’s description would bum a ride late at night and when the driver would return the next day to see if she got home alright, they would discover that the person they aided was in fact the spirit of the departed Mary. ![]() The next legend surrounding Mary is that following her possibly nasty demise, her restless spirit would wander the area around her former home on Winthrop Avenue (adjacent to Evergreen Cemetery), occasionally taking rides with unsuspecting good samaritans. Burying six feet under and leaving her to rot eventually made her all dead. ![]() Like the Man in Black from The Princess Bride, she had only been mostly dead. After they finally capitulated, dug her up and opened her casket, they discovered a horrific sight: Mary was dead, but apparently hadn’t been quite that way when buried - her fingernails were bloodied and the inside of her coffin was shredded as she had apparently tried to claw her way out. The first - and most horrific - says her family found her apparently dead of a stroke at the stroke of midnight and quickly had her buried her aunt, however, had a dream the next night in which she saw Mary still alive in her coffin and plead with the powers-that-be to dig her up. According to David Phillips’ Legendary Connecticut (and others), there are a three different stories surrounding the demise of Ms.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |