Scranton Times Leader
July 22, 2004
By JENNIFER LEARN-ANDES
A LOOK BACK: ST. JOSEPH'S CATHOLIC CHURCH CEMETERY
LEHIGH TWP. - A decaying graveyard on an isolated Carbon
County road between White Haven and Weatherly will play host to churchgoers
this afternoon.
They are coming to honor the 150th anniversary of the church
that used to stand there. But they also hope their gathering will halt
ghost-chasers and nighttime revelers who are ruining what's left of this sacred
burial ground.
"We're hoping if people realize that people are taking
care of this place and care about it, that some of the bad things would stop happening,"
said the Rev. James J. Burdess of St. Nicholas Church in Weatherly.
Burdess helps oversee St. Joseph's Catholic Church Cemetery
near the Laurytown Valley close to the Lehigh Gorge State Park Rockport access.
The church that once stood near the cemetery was destroyed by a presumed arson
fire in 1966.
Volunteers maintain the cemetery, but they feel as if
they're spinning their wheels because the site is a magnet for trouble.
The rural townships around the cemetery don't have local
police and few residents live nearby.
Much of the destruction and partying occurs at night, when
there are few, if any, motorists on Old Church Road, which fronts the cemetery.
The Internet is helping to spread local lore about the
cemetery, which pops up on at least three Internet sites as a hotbed of
"ghostly" activity.
"The cemetery is far off the beaten path and far out of
the realm of our understanding," reads one site with a black background
and creepy quotes devoted entirely to "The Haunted Cemetery."
"When one walks past the gravestones, the air becomes
heavy with energy. There are rumors that witches meet there on moonlit nights,
continuing the practices of their ancestors. All of this mystery proves
irresistible for our investigators," the description continues.
Web sites describe accounts of paranormal activity observed
there, including a white hearse, shadowy figures, a man wearing 1800s clothes
tossing logs onto piles and a white glowing horse.
One woman circled fuzzy parts of a picture that she believes
were ghosts, and another named Anne describes a horrible smell, making it the
"LAST time I went there."
A woman on a Web site titled "All about ghosts. Your
paranormal portal" said she heard the sound of a bottle smashed off a
headstone when nobody else was around.
Other sites transcribe ghostly voice messages recorded
there.
A ghost "investigator" reported that his cameras
stopped working only while he was in the cemetery.
"That's all ridiculous. It's a fable. That's all it
is," said Weatherly area resident Frank Raynock, a member of the volunteer
cemetery cleanup crew from St. Nicholas Knights of Columbus Council 12105.
Raynock and a group of about 14 men armed with lawn mowers
and weedwhackers descend on the cemetery several times in warm months to cut
tree limbs, burn brush and clean up debris.
They try to stand tombstones back up, some taller than them.
Often the stones are lying back down a week later.
"We find a lot of beer cans, cigarette packs and
whatever else comes from a party," he said.
He and other fourth-degree Knights will attend today's Mass,
which comes two years after the church's actual 150th anniversary, dressed in
tuxedos. Some honor guards will be in full regalia with suits, capes and
swords.
Retired Allentown Diocese Bishop Thomas Welsh, who has
family buried in the cemetery, is also scheduled to participate in the Mass.
Raynock's grandparents are buried in the cemetery, and he
remembers serving as an altar boy in the church during services that drew
roughly 50 to 60 people.
"It was a small white chapel, not real big. But inside
it was very pretty," he said.
The church statues and organ were removed for safekeeping
when the vandalism started.
Raynock was working in Mountain Top the night of the fire.
"Everybody was very upset about it. It was useless for
that church to burn down. It's sad to not have it there anymore," Raynock
said, noting that it could possibly have been used for special services or
preserved for historical purposes.
St. Joseph's once bustled with members from Weatherly, Buck
Mountain and other parts of the scenic land around Rockport.
But there was trouble from the start.
The parish of St. Mary's Church in Beaver Meadows outside
Hazleton engaged a Tamaqua contractor to build the church in Laurytown. The
church's foundation was laid and the lumber delivered, but the contractor
disappeared with the money, paying for none of the work and materials and
failing to complete the job.
A Weatherly contractor took over construction. The church
borrowed money from a local man and then repaid the debt in gold. The
cornerstone was laid Aug. 15, 1850, and the church opened around 1852.
The first priest to serve at St. Joseph's was buried beside
the church in a grave marked by a marble slab.
Many of the dozens of people buried there were born in at
least eight counties of Ireland in the early 1800s, including Donegal, Queens
and Limerick. At least one birth dates back to the late 1700s.
Weatherly historian John Koehler believes some of these
immigrants worked in a nearby coal mine on Buck Mountain by Eckley. Coal from
this mountain was in demand because it burned clean and made little smoke, he
said.
In 1906, the thriving St. Joseph's was redecorated with new
windows and statues to celebrate its golden jubilee and rededication.
It's not clear when the church stopped being used or why,
although some locals say it's because more of the combined St. Nicholas-St.
Joseph's church population lived near St. Nicholas.
Vandals started hanging out and damaging the cemetery and
church around 1964 before burning the church entirely, leaving only the chimney
and cornerstone.
Some connected Hazleton area youth were suspected of the
crime, but the priest at the time opted not to press the matter, local
residents say.
Much of the wrought-iron fence surrounding the cemetery was
ripped out by vandals and tombstones were toppled, moved and even stolen. Some
say cemetery stones serve as large private residential garden flagstones here
and there.
At least 24 stones were vandalized in 1997.
For decades local youth have called it the "Haunted
Cemetery" and "Lovers' Lane."
Some locals say the ghost stories and vandalism surfaced
after the death of a feisty maid named Brigid who lived in a shack across the
street from the cemetery and used to take care of the church.
While alive, she would chase away trespassers. When she died,
nobody was around to keep an eye out.
Koehler, the historian, mapped out the cemetery plots and
took pictures of each grave marker in the 1980s. One woman from another state
recently screamed in joy on the phone when he verified that one of her ancestors
had been buried at St. Joseph's.
Burdess is trying to post warnings on the Internet saying
that the cemetery is only open for daylight religious and genealogical visits,
but he doesn't know if he'll have any success.
"Things are disappearing at a rapid rate in that
cemetery," Koehler said, adding that he thinks it's sacrilegious to damage
a cemetery.
Koehler remembers leaving a Weatherly restaurant around 10
one night when a carload of youths from the Wilkes-Barre area pulled up and
asked for directions to the haunted cemetery.
"We don't have any haunted cemeteries," Koehler
recalls telling them.
He adds defiantly, "I wouldn't tell them how to get
there."
Vandals have toppled many gravestones at St. Joseph's
Cemetery, which is located on a remote road in Lehigh Township between
Weatherly and White Haven.
Many of the dozens of people buried at St. Joseph's Cemetery
were Irish immigrants.
St. Joseph's Catholic Church stood in the countryside
outside Weatherly until vandals burned it down in 1966. The 150th anniversary
of the structure is being celebrated today.
The interior of St. Joseph's Catholic Church. Some of the
statues were saved before vandals started hanging out there in the 1960s.
IF YOU GO: People can attend a Mass at the site of the old
St. Joseph's Catholic Church at 2 p.m. today. A covered-dish picnic will follow
at 4:30 p.m. at Tweedle Park in Weatherly.
St. Joseph's, now just a cemetery, is located on Church Road
off Lehigh Gorge Drive.
On the Web
Curious about what ghost hunters say about St. Joseph's
Catholic Church Cemetery near Weatherly?
Go to www.oocities.org/prrt352/weatherly.html