The Stories Behind 8 ‘Witch’ Graves

These days, we know there’s no such thing as a broomstick-riding, pointy-hat-wearing witch. But it wasn’t that long ago that people blamed witches for everyday problems like bad crops and common colds. When these supposed spell-casters died, the stories about them lived on—and, in some cases, were fabricated afterward. Here are their tales.

Lilias Adie // Torryburn, Scotland

In 1704, Lilias Adie confessed to being a witch and having sex with the devil. Though she was jailed for “admitting” to her crimes, Adie died before her trial and sentencing. To prevent her from returning to life and seeking revenge on the town, locals buried her in the mud between high tide and low tide, then sunk a heavy, flat stone over it. (The BBC points out that this was also the method used to bury people who had died by suicide, which, at the time, was believed to be something one only did if they were in league with the devil.) 

The extreme measures didn’t keep the alleged witch in her grave, but it wasn’t because her angry spirit came back. Adie’s skull was stolen sometime in the 19th century and ended up at the St. Andrews University Museum. The large stone slab, however, remains embedded in the mud to this day.

Rhoda Ward // Bridgeport, West Virginia

A woman named Rhoda Ward suffered from chicken pox during the winter of 1786–1787. As if the ailment wasn’t bad enough, someone told city officials Ward was seen vomiting crooked pins during her illness. This, apparently, was just cause to put Ward on trial in January 1787. Her official statement on the matter was, “If I did, I knowed it not, though it might be the case, and if the pins had not been showed to me, and I have been told that I spewed them up, I should have thought that the above had been a fiction, proceeding from being light-headed with fever.”

Ward was found innocent of all charges, even after a second trial 12 years later. But that hasn’t stopped people from declaring that there’s something unsettling about her unmarked grave in Bridgeport.

Susan Gavan // Aurora, Nebraska

Local lore says that anyone who steps on Susan Gavan’s grave will die within nine years or by age 21—and the whole superstition seems to stem from the simple fact that her grave is enclosed by a small fence. There’s no record of Gavan being accused of any witchy activity, and her 1882 obituary was perfectly respectful. In 2005, the cemetery superintendent said he believed her reputation as the town witch comes solely from the grave decoration: “In my opinion, the witch story got started, probably by some kids, because her grave has a fence around it and is different from the rest of the graves.”

Hannah Cranna // Trumbull, Connecticut

After Hannah Cranna Hovey’s husband died—he mysteriously fell off a cliff—villagers said she used witchcraft to curse people who weren’t charitable toward her by providing extra firewood or food. It’s also said that Cranna foretold her own death and asked locals to carry her casket into the cemetery when she died. They opted to bring it in by sleigh instead, but the coffin fell off—which they took as a sign that they had better carry out her wishes.

Meg Shelton // Woodplumpton, England

It’s said Meg Shelton used her mystical powers to steal milk and grain from farmers, make cattle sick, and cause crop failures. Townspeople were so fed up with her ways that when she died, they had her grave covered with a large rock to prevent the witch from returning. Though the boulder doesn’t appear to be big enough to cover a coffin, it is when you consider this: They had Meg buried vertically, head down—just in case she tried to dig her way out.

The Witch of Yazoo // Yazoo City, Mississippi

Writer Willie Morris immortalized the Witch of Yazoo in his novel Good Old Boy: A Delta Boyhood. According to his story, this unnamed witch was known to lure fishermen off the river and into her cabin, where she tortured and killed them. In 1884, the town sheriff and his deputies eventually came to arrest her, and when she fled, she went directly into quicksand in the nearby swamp. As she died, she swore that she would return and burn the city to the ground. She made good on her word. In 1904, Yazoo City suffered from a terrible fire that destroyed the entire business district, more than 100 homes, and all but one church. When the townspeople thought to check on the witch’s grave, they discovered the chain-link fence surrounding it had been broken.

Whether or not the (very real) fire was the result of a witch, the townspeople have embraced the legend. In the 1990s, they placed a tombstone/monument in the middle of the broken chains. 

Elizabeth Graham // Tallahassee, Florida

When 23-year-old Bessie Graham died in 1889, leaving behind a husband and two young children, her devastated husband apparently vowed to memorialize her by building the largest and most striking tombstone in the cemetery. He also had it inscribed with a passage from Edgar Allan Poe’s “Lenore”:

“Ah! Broken is the golden bowl.
The spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll! A saintly soul
Floats on the Stygian River;
Come let the burial rite be read
The funeral song be sung;
An anthem for the queenliest dead
That died so young
A dirge for her the doubly dead
In that she died so young.”

The combination of the massive monument, the macabre poem, and fact that the grave faces the “wrong” direction (west instead of east) has led locals to conclude that Bessie must have been a witch—albeit a “good” one.

Bathsheba Sherman // Harrisville, Rhode Island

Made famous by the 2013 movie The Conjuring, Bathsheba Sherman allegedly sacrificed an infant child as an offering to the devil by jamming knitting needle into the base of its neck in the 19th century. She was acquitted of all charges, but the legend only grew. Bathsheba, some of the stories say, literally turned to stone when she died. And of course, according to The Conjuring, her spirit hung around her old farmhouse and terrorized the Perron family in the 1970s. Sadly, her grave in the Harrisville Cemetery has been repeatedly vandalized since the movie came out.

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A version of this story originally ran in 2015; it has been updated for 2024.