Ghost of Green Mountain Cemetery

With this being the month of All Hollow's Eve, I've decided to stick with the theme. Or at least try to.

Todays pictures are from my August 2003 trip to the East coast. My yearly birthday excape. While I was in New Hampshire (tax free state) I decided that I was going to buy me a digital camera for myself as a b-day present. So, this is when I aquired my little digital Elph camera. And of course, I had to go back into Vermont to the Green Mountain Cemetery in Montpelier.

My first visit to Vermont in October of '97 I was given a night tour of this cemetery. Local legend has it that on Halloween night at midnight if you sit on the lap of Black Agnes and kiss her on the lips, you will either die or very bad things will happen to you. My girldfriend Erin was with us, the one that I make stop at every cemetery we are driving by, which by the way, HATES cemeteries. So it is me, Erin, Dew and Russ driving all around this cemetery, in the dark, trying to find Black Agnes. We must have drove up, down and around that cemetery for a good part of an hour looking for her. Problem is, if you don't know EXACTLY where she is, you can drive by her without even knowing it. She is made of copper and is completely weathered, so at night she blends right into the darkness. And let me tell you, it gets pitch dark out there! The whole time, the boys are talking about all kind of scary stuff, only because they knew Erin would scare easily. And yeah, she was not having fun to say the least. She was freaking out just a little bit. I though, was fully enjoying myself. I was having a great time since it was October and only a day or two away from All Hollow's Eve. Oh yeah, I was having a blast! After an hour of driving around though and not being able to find her, we left.

The next day we all went back up there again. The boys and Erin were able to spot right away. Turns out that we must have drove by her about 10 times that night. When I saw her, I could see why we missed her. Black Agnes is in the top picture. She sits on the grave of John E. Hubbard. I remember the boys telling me something about the wife and why there is a lady sitting on the grave, but for the life of me I can't remember what they said. However, when I did a search of haunts in Vermont, the Green Mountain Cemetery popped up. The Shadowlands and Juicee News Daily only refers to "Rumor has it that the grave marked by a green statue of a weeping lady is haunted." I'm not entirely sure if Black Agnes is the weeping lady or not, but she is green and it makes for a great ghost story while driving around Green Mountain Cemetery at night!

I did do a little research on the name Hubbard though. In 1899, John E. Hubbard gave the City of Montpelier a gift of 125 acres, which is now Hubbard Park. Then I found something at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library web site:

"...in 1889, the Kellogg-Hubbard Library saga began when Martin M. Kellogg, a New York City real estate magnate born in Barre, died of a heart attack; three months later his widow, the former Fanny M. Hubbard, a Montpelier native, also died and left a $300,000 estate. The couple had agreed that their money should be given to the city to construct ornate entrance gates for the Green Mount Cemetery and to build a public library.

But Fanny's nephew, John E. Hubbard, contested the will. After witnesses testified at a probate court hearing that they hadn't realized they were signing a will, the judge ruled in Hubbard's favor. Town fathers filed a counter suit and after three years of dispute--with residents taking sides--Hubbard agreed to build the library; ironically, he eventually paid $30,000 more than the amount called for in the will."

(Picture at right is a piture I took in 2003 of Martin & Fanny's grave. Little did I know of the history of the Kellogg's & Hubbards at that time!)

I'm thinking that the Hubbard's were a family to reckon with. Kinda makes you wonder just what kind of skeletons the Hubbard's and the Kellogg's have in their closets. I do remember while we were driving around the cemetery, this time in 2003, there were a lot of Hubbard and Kellogg graves. Of course, when I think of Kellogg's, I think of Kellogg's cereal.

What I do know about the Green Mountain State that that Barre, Vermont (which is a hops, skip and a jump from Montpelier) which is called the "Granite Center of the World", bears that title for a reason. Green Mountain Cemetery and Hope Cemetery are both homes to some of the best granite statues and monuments that I have ever seen.