In a recent issue of a monthly magazine, a story appeared in which the writer interviewed Ed and Lorraine Warren, two long time ghost hunters and investigators of the reported supernatural occurrences. The story listed a number of places in Connecticut which the Warrens have investigated at one time or another. Much to the disappointment of the Warrens, the story appeared as a “where to go on Halloween” story. One of these sites listed was the Seventh Day Baptist Cemetery on Upson Road in Burlington.

In the past 30 years the cemetery has been the scene of vandalism and drinking parties, which resulted in the destruction and disappearance of nearly every stone there. And all of the vandalism seems to be the result of the very colorful and widely known legend of “The Green Lady”.

According to Frank Schade, former director of the nearby New Britain Fresh Air Camp, the Legend was well established as long ago as 1933, when he first joined the camp’s staff. Schade remembers that during the first summer in Burlington several children asked him to tell the story of the Green Lady.

According to the Warrens, ghosts represent earthbound spirits that refuse, for a variety of reasons, to pass over to the next world. Often these spirits are the victims of violent crime or accidental death, which occurred so suddenly and unexpectedly that they remain in limbo, unable to accept the turn of events.

But as far as the Green Lady legend is concerned, there is no story to tell, and no individual tragedy to which one could attribute any earth bound spirit, and the Warrens are the first to admit it. Ed doesn’t believe there is any basis to the legend, and explained that if there have been actual hauntings at the cemetery, they are the result of necromancy, or conjuring of spirits, by individuals interested in witchcraft. The Warrens added that on at least one of their visits to the site, they found what they consider definite indications that someone has been holding black masses in the Baptist cemetery.

Everyone who knows the legend knows that Green Lady is supposed to appear as a greenish mist of fog-like substance either rising from a grave or floating down out of the surrounding woods. And although she is usually portrayed as gentle and quiet, the story varies with the teller so that it has even been claimed that she caries a hatchet and screams at intruders.

Frank Schade attributes the popularity of the spot only to the sensationalism of the legend but also to the loneliness of the area, to the lack of nearby houses, to the dirt road on which it stands and to the row of ancient trees which overhang the cemetery walls. The Baptist cemetery is one of the oldest in Burlington and was opened during the late 18^th century, with the last burial dating back to the mid 1800’s.

Several years ago when Ed and Lorraine Warren had a television show on channel 18 they began receiving numerous letters from what they consider to be reliable individuals, all claiming to have seen the Green Lady. The Warrens subsequently became interested in the site and investigated on their own. They visited the location several times and never saw or experienced anything to substantiate the claims. Lorraine Warren is widely recognized as clairvoyant. When the Warrens conduct an investigation it is Lorraine who tries to establish a contact with the spirit. In Burlington she had no communication whatsoever and says that no other clairvoyant has either.

“It’s just a story,” Schade says. “This Green Lady business has been all over the state. I squelched it as much as I could.” Once when Schade visited a Boy Scout camp in Eastford he heard one boy telling another to “watch out for the Green Lady.” Katherine Gilchrist had lived on Upson Road for 32 years and in that time neither she nor her children have ever seen or heard anything which would have indicated that the cemetery was haunted. But she distinctly remembers as a girl, reading a long poem in the Cyr reader for the fourth grade about a Revolutionary War period girl who was dressed in a green ball gown and ready to attend a ball. Then word came that her lover had been killed in fighting and she died of a broken heart. According to the poet, ever after she was known to haunt the cemetery in Suffern, New York, dressed in the green gown.

Katherine is a member of the Burlington Cemetery Association, and said that the Association had at one time voted to remove the stones from the Baptist cemetery and simply store them until the “craze” had passed. But unfortunately, someone went through one night with a sledgehammer and smashed them all before they could be removed.

So as a result, all the stones are gone including a ten foot monument. (There are three stones left-L.R.A.) Probably the only one which has survived in one piece was saved by Frank Schade, who saw some youths loading it into the back end of their station wagon one summer night. This stone, dated 1802, has recently been made a gift of the Burlington Historical Society, and will probably be replaced to its original location lying down, and set in a protective slab of cement.

Bristol Press Trader, October 27, 1976

(Mr. Gaylord L. Paine, age 75 told me that his father told him the “Green Lady” story when he was a boy. He said that probably the story came from Ed. Spencer or his sons, Herman, Harry or Howard, all of whom lived on the Burlington, New Hartford town line. 8-6-90-L.R.A.)