I lived in New England for twenty-three years and it was shortly after I moved there that I heard about Danvers.  I had never been interested in the paranormal beyond watching scary movies on occasion so the place did not hold much interest for me.  I was unwillingly drawn into it when my daughter had to do a photo assignment for her high school photography class.  She was supposed to try night shots and she wanted to go shoot at the local graveyard, Blood Cemetery.  That's not it's actual name.  It's true name is Pine Hill Cemetery but everyone refers to it by its infamous name.  Abel Blood was one of the town's founding fathers and it's his grave that is supposed to have paranormal activity.  Abel Blood's gravestone has a carved hand in it with the index finger pointing up, to symbolize "pathway to heaven" or "heavenly reward."  I don't know what kind of person Abel Blood was but it has been reported that upon occasion, his finger has been seen pointing downward.  I was never impressed with the story but I did not want my daughter going up there alone. I wasn't worried about the dead and what they might be up to.  I was worried about the living that might be up there with a six-pack and an inebriated perception of reality that might skew their abilty to determine cause and effect, and consequences for their drunk actions.

We went a little after 9 PM.  She had her nice camera I had bought her for her new found passion while I took my rinky-dink point and shoot with me to finish off a role of 400.  Her black and white shots of ancient granite tombstones turned out very nice indeed and she got an A.  She had taken my roll to develop for extra credit in, what else, developing, and both she and her teacher were shocked.  I "had caught something" with my camera, not once, not twice, but five times.  There was a mist that was clearly seen in the negatives and very obvious in the prints.  Not those little orbs everyone gets excited about, but a vaporous mist that was hovering around the few graves I had shot.

Needless to say my daughter and I were both creeped out.  Her more than me.  I was fascinated and so ready to disprove the event.  I went back with my husband the night before Halloween.  When we got out of the car, a dog was howling.  The mood was set.  The moment we stepped over the chain the keeps cars from trying to enter the cemetery, the howling was cut off.  Seriously cut off.  I kid you not.  I photographed only one mist but caught so many orbs it looked like a Lawrence Welk extravaganza.  But beyond that, we felt like we didn't belong there.  We looked at each other when we got to the top of the hill and he said it first.  "They don't want us here."

So we left and didn't go back.

After we moved to Massachusetts, we were driving north on I-95 and there it was in all its glory.  Danvers State Insane Asylum.  It had been taken over by a development company for apartments.  They destroyed approximately ten to twelve buildings rather than try to save them.  When you rent at Danvers, you're in a brand new apartment that stands on very old ground.  The building of it started in 1874 with it opening in 1878 as the State Lunatic Hospital.  It closed as Danvers State Insane Asylum on June 24, 1992.  It had housed patients for 114 years.  Then it stood abandoned for 14 years up on the hill.

The Kirkbride building was the center of a bat-like structure that had wings for patients staggering off its body.  It was the focus of a film title, Session 9" that plucked the heartstrings of everyone interested in the paranormal.  I was interested in the architecture.  They don't make buildings like that anymore and by the time I became interested enough to plan to visit, all that was left was the Kirkbride with its gothic towers.  Also left was the cemetery.  I took photos of the building but then decided to walk on down to the cemetery where the staff of Danvers Insane Asylum had buried the dead.

The cemetery had been forgotten for so many years that at one time no one remembered it was there.  Then a group called Danvers State Memorial Committee went in and cleaned the cemeteries up (there are actually two) in 1997.  Their website states that 768 patients are buried on the Danvers asylum grounds.  They have, at the last update of their website, say they plan on replacing the numbers of 350 gravesites in the spring of 2002.

I went there in the fall of 2008 after the frost was on the pumpkin as they say in New England.  It was a cool, crisp morning and I had my camera ready.  My husband, my constant companion, was with me.  The first thing we saw was the the entrance was marked by a huge granite stone that had been carved in honor of the Danvers patients who had died and been forgotten until the committee devoted their time and attention to cleaning up and identitying them.  One of the words on the stone is misspelled.  My husband's comment was, "Boy, I bet the patients in there are pi**ed."

We went in and the grass had not been mowed in weeks.  It was overgrown making the numbers more difficult to see.  The place had a somber feel to it.  Just impressions we got, nothing to prove it but my tone of voice which you can't hear but if you could, you would start to feel the same sense of foreboding.  We were actually very close to the highway and in fact, up in the parking lot by the Kirkbride buidlng, you can hear the cars.  But down closer to the highway, down in the cemetery, you couldn't hear anything.  A random bird that wouldn't stay long.  The creaking of trees as they shifted position in the ground or the wind blew hard enough down in that, what could it be called?  It is a stiff slant down so, hillside?  You are ever walking downward until you want to leave and then it is a very interesting walk back up.

At the bottom of the hill, next to the stone wall and the start of a thicket of tall trees, we found where the committee had tossed the old numbers and had the newer ones sitting on wooden pallets.  The newer ones had green fungus growing on them.  I took photos (I'm always taking pictures) but I started feeling weak.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  Before I could speak to it, my husband came up to me and said my face was sheet white.  I told him I didn't feel well and wanted to go back to the car.  He held my arm under my elbow and was walking me slowly up that stupid hill.

Where I had been cold before, I was now burning up.  I was yanking off my coat, my watchcap.  My husband tried to keep me dressed but I was so hot.  I had to stop and bend over several times thinking I was going to be sick.  He stayed with me until we got to the top of the hill still inside the cemetery proper.  There is a granite bench there and I laid down on it. l I had to.  Standing was hard.  The awful thing was that if I turned my body away from looking at the cemetery, I felt like I was going to fall off the bench and roll back down the hill.  But if I turned to face it, the feeling wasn't so bad yet I was looking at the graves.  I kept my eyes closed for a minute and felt horrible.

My poor husband didn't know what to do.  He wanted to go get the car but he didn't want to leave me.  I told him to give me a minute.  I didn't want to be alone in that place either.  I finally got my sea legs and he helped me up the hill to the dirt road where the caretakers are supposed to drive their lawnmowers down to take care of the cemetery.  I had to sit down again.  I was so dizzy and queazy.  My husband ran to get the car.  I was alone looking down at the entrance to the cemetery, and that crazy stone with the misspelled word.  I sat up and looked down at it.  I have no proof other than my word so all I can do is tell you.  I saw a figure move off back into the cemetery.  I felt too ill to raise my camera.  I felt too scared.  I started walking bent over at the waist up the road to meet my hsuband in the car.  I did not want to stay there.

He got to me and helped me inside the car.  We had brought water and I drank some, as if it were Death Valley in August.  I put the seat back and he got us out of there.  We drove out of the parking lot, past the Kirkbride, and down the hill.  We got to the light that would put us back on I-95 south.  By the time we got on the highway and were closer to highway 128, going back to Rockport, I felt better.  The further we got from Danvers, the better I felt.  By the time we were going past the exit to Essex, I was perfectly fine.

My husband and I took a few days before downloading my photos.  We needed the space of time.  When we did, there was nothing untoward on the images.  But I can tell you this.  I will never, ever go back to that place.  Never.