Why the dead would haunt the living is a mystery, but usually the reason for the location of a haunting is not. A house, a school, a battlefield…these are places where the best and worst moments of life may occur, places that are seared with the fires of life’s most important events. But why would a ghost haunt a cemetery? It might seem a strange question, particularly given the nervous feeling many of us get when walking past the gates of a city of the dead, especially when the sun has already set in the west. But whatever the case, some cemeteries seem as though they are more thoroughly infested with the spirits of the dead than others. Holt Cemetery on Society Hill is one of those places.
The interesting thing about Holt Cemetery is that the haunting is a public affair, not limited to the caretakers or people who live in the area. Visit Society Hill, and it is almost certain that you will hear the disembodied whispers of the past. Take a picture, and more often than not, something strange and uncanny will appear in the frame. Get a tape recorder and leave it running. When you play it back, you’ll hear singing echoing back across time.
Where do these voices come from? What do they signify? To whom do they belong? It’s likely we’ll never know, and the spirits of Holt Cemetery will go on, never quite getting the rest they deserve.
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Haunted Alabama Black Belt written by David Higdon and Brett Talley – Copyright © 2013 by David Higdon and Brett Talley – All rights reserved