Well, it happened again, and I got bored.So that means one of a few things: I either go to YouTube and look up old funny Vines, I google "Sedalia" and see what comes up, or I go to the archives of the Sedalia Bazoo.  Today, I went with the latter.

I'm so ready for fall, I'm ready for the coolness in the air, I'm ready for the leaves to change, I'm ready for Halloween and spooky stories.  Well, I found one heck of a spooky story on the Bazoo this time.  Unfortunately, the article itself is very problematic and downright racist.  So I don't want to, you know, spread that, because the language at one point is atrocious, and the condescending tone toward the reporter's witness is just terrible. So what I'll do is, I'll paraphrase the story and outline what I can gather.

The story ran in the June 1890 edition of the Sedalia Bazoo.  There was a small, long forgotten cemetery on the north east side of town, described as between Lamine and "a direct line west of the current city cemetery".

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Thanks, Google maps.

So if the information in the story is right, this is about where we're talking.  On the right, I've marked a big red square where Crown Hill Cemetery is now. That might be the "city cemetery" he's referring to. In the story, he says that the abandoned cemetery is near Lamine, and at the time was private property owned by the White family.  I've marked where Lamine is with another box on the left.  So you kinda get the idea of where it might be.  In the story, the reporter mentions that the area has several mounds of long abandoned, some unmarked, graves.  He also mentions there's a huge mound that was a trench where numerous bodies were buried in a mass grave after a smallpox epidemic.  A mass grave that still stank at the time.  So if it was long abandoned in the 1890's, and the smallpox epidemic was in the 1870's (the epidemic is referred to as over "eighteen years ago"), it was probably out of use right after the mass grave was dug. Long enough that lots of vegetation had grown over most of the markers.

In the story, our snooty reporter talks to a man named Alexander Rawlin.  Rawlin was an undertaker and gravedigger at the time of the epidemic, and was very familiar with the area.  He saw some very jarring ghost activity in that area, and I think I can even pinpoint where Alexander was when he saw it.

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Alexander mentions he was walking home down Lamine and coming up to an area of a small bridge crossing a creek.  Looking at this overhead map, I've marked where I think the creek was in blue, and the section of street where Alexander might have been in red. I mean, I'm no expert*, but it sure LOOKS like there was  a creek there at some point.  Then, there's what he saw.

One evening just after twilight, but not so dark but what you could see quite a distance, I was on my way home.  I started down by the by-road to cross the little bridge which spanned the creek....  On the other side of the creek i saw a man, who had a lantern in his hand, leading a horse which was hitched to a wagon... I kept on walking towards him and when not more than a hundred feet from him the light in the lantern went out.  It was in the next instant that the  man disappeared, then the horse dissolved into the air, but the wagon kept going on alone, crossed the bridge and came straight towards me.  I called to a friend of mine, who lived in a house close by, to come out and see the strange sight.  Just as I called to him, the wagon disappeared. He came out and we went to the bridge and found the tracks of the wagon and tracked them to where they disappeared.

Freaky.  And, he mentions that not only did he see it more than once, but other people saw it, too.  He also mentions people have told him about a rider on a white horse who vanishes.  They even heard a little squeak from the saddle, a detail indicating it was new. They saw it during the daytime, and it would last anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes before going back to the graveyard.

So where is the abandoned graveyard?  

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I have no idea for sure. But if I were to venture a guess, I'd say it was in the gap of private property, or has been built over by housing between Lamine and Washington.

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OR MAYBE IT'S THERE, IN THE CREEPY LAND FACE!

Have you ever heard about this old, abandoned cemetery?  If you live in that neighborhood (or visited for that matter, whichever) have you seen anything strange?

Spookily yours,
Behka

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Please, please, don't mistake me for an expert about anything.

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