One question I get a lot is,”Why is Lock Haven so haunted?”

Since I’m the guy who investigates, writes about ghosts and gives haunted tours, I guess that makes me the expert here. So let me elaborate… the question kind of skips a step. Before we get into why Lock Haven is such a haunted place, we need to verify that it is, in fact, excessively haunted.

My experience is that yes, it is. Our history includes at least three haunted cemeteries, more haunted buildings than I can count, four Native American burial grounds that no longer exist and a selection of other ghosts on our streets, surrounding mountains and the river. I’ve been investigating this stuff since 2007, and I feel that Lock Haven is a special place for ghost stories.

As to the question of why, there are probably several reasons. I’ve written about a few of these before. But when you’re looking into the cause of haunted spots, one place to look is the local cemeteries.

Any time you’re discussing haunted cemeteries in Lock Haven, Great Island Cemetery has to come up. Great Island Cemetery was founded in the late 1700s, and it was along the south side of Bellefonte Avenue, up on the hill. It sat roughly between Highland and Pearl Streets, and recently I’ve been told that it extended for further than anyone believed. It covered several blocks that were largely undocumented.

The cemetery no longer exists. By the early 1900s, it was in bad condition, and the city eventually decided to move it. By which I mean, mostly the top half. An effort was made to find and dig up all of the bodies and gravestones, but there were far too many to keep track of. A lot of them wound up getting left behind. To this day, people find interesting things in their yards when they’re gardening or something.

Bodies and stones were moved to several other cemeteries. Highland, Dunnstown, Cedar Hill and Flemington all got some of the remains of Great Island Cemetery. Finally, on July 23, 1919, the headline ran: “Great Island Cemetery Is No More.”

Even when it was in good condition, Great Island Cemetery was believed to be haunted. It was believed that there were at least two ghosts, specifically women, one in white and one in black. A 1917 article in The Express described a witness claiming the Lady In Black ran out into the street and grabbed him by the arm.

This may be explained by the petrified bodies.

Oh, yes, there were a couple of those. When the cemetery was moved, two women were petrified. Madeline Yost and Catherine Baker Phillips are both on the record as “body petrified.” In one case, the newspaper reported,”The body weighed about 800 pounds and much difficulty was experienced in removing it.” With two female bodies petrified, and two female ghosts, it explains a lot. Both bodies were moved to Flemington.

Another creepy incident in Great Island Cemetery is the death of John Michael Conley. Conley was the criminal partner to the notorious David “Robber” Lewis, of Bellefonte, and they were shot and apprehended in 1820. Conley died of his wounds, and was buried on the outskirts of Great Island Cemetery. Some time later his body was dug up, his skull removed to be used at a college and the rest reburied. In 1919, his body was one of the unfound ones. So someone in that neighborhood lives on top of a headless bad guy.

“Remains Of The Dead To Be Removed From Cemetery,” the Clinton County Times reported on Oct. 11, 1918. The article said,”All the bodies, or what remained of them numbering 100 or more, have been removed from the old Lock Haven Cemetery on Bellefonte Avenue by men in the employ of C.H. Bressler, who had acquired the land, and the same have been re-interred in Bellevue Cemetery, Flemington, or in other cemeteries designated by relatives. The tombstones and markers have also been removed and replaced on the head of the graves.”

Bodies and stones were shipped to Highland, Flemington and Dunnstown, among a couple of others. If you mark those cemeteries on a map of Clinton County, this basically means that we took one haunted cemetery, split it up and surrounded the city with it.

The city of Lock Haven took a haunted place and spread it out throughout the community. Assuming that some of the ghosts went with their bodies and markers, and are now haunting the other cemeteries, and some perhaps stayed with their bodies in Great Island, this covers a pretty broad area of the city. Perhaps a few of the ghosts, once their bodies were moved, went back to the homes they’d lived in previously.

Lock Haven had one concentrated haunted area, and spread it out throughout the community. And it could be one reason why the city is so haunted. We don’t just keep a haunting in one neighborhood… We share it, and let everyone have a bit.