It’s almost Halloween, an appropriate time to consider the question of haunted cemeteries.

Which cemeteries in Windham are haunted?

This question was posed to me several times a couple of years ago. As historian for Windham Historical Society, I was used to being asked where someone is buried, but to be asked for a “list of haunted cemeteries,” and to furnish information about ghosts in the old burying grounds (and other places) was a unique proposition for an organization which deals in facts.

When a dozen or more people came to the Society seeking ghostly information, week after week, I finally asked one of them if they could explain the sudden interest in spirits. “Oh, we’re taking a class about ghosts. We’re learning how to find them.”

A class was being taught in Windham Adult Education about the paranormal. The obvious place to come for information about old cemeteries was the Historical Society, or so they had been told.

No matter how I tried to explain that in my decades of living in Windham, I had never heard of any haunted graveyards, these students were not to be dissuaded. They cited Web sites that set forth information, which they took as the gospel truth.

Curious about what I had missed, I checked on the Internet and found a story about a cemetery literally in my backyard, which apparently was more exciting than I ever had thought.

I was quite surprised to find out the place was believed to be haunted and the site even quoted “the locals” as having seen two young girls – perhaps sisters – playing in front of the graveyard. These sisters, according to legend, have tombstones in the cemetery but their bodies have never been found. Some think they were buried in a well or mineshaft. (Although there’s no mine anywhere around.)

The Chute Cemetery on Chute Road was built by one of the descendants of the first white man to settle in Windham. George Chute farmed at the corner of Chute and Swett Road, and as was the tradition of the time, had a little area in the pasture, which was used as a family cemetery. In time, he decided to have two monuments made and erected to the memory of his ancestors. Then he “fenced” the cemetery in with granite blocks that he cut and split and hauled across the field to the graveyard. Others in the neighborhood – the Swetts and some of the Cobb family also used this small old cemetery. It sets way back in the pasture and is easily seen from the road, but not accessible to the public.

When I was growing up on the Chute Road, we children played in the pasture, in the nearby brook and in that cemetery. I never heard about any ghosts and the only visitors to the cemetery were the cows and an occasional woodchuck, foxes and other wildlife. No one had been buried there for generations.

My ghost hunters at the Historical Society pointed to this information, as “gospel” and added that they had now “heard” that the sisters were buried in their prom gowns. They so sincerely believed what they were saying, and though I gave them a list of all the burials, explained that prom gowns hadn’t been thought of in the late 1800s, and no sisters had gravestones there, I know they didn’t believe me.

This is how legends grow. Each person interprets a story in their own way and in retelling, new details are sometimes added. No doubt, in a few years, this yarn will be embellished even more.

If people want to check out the local cemeteries, looking for ghosts or searching for history, there are nearly two dozen graveyards in Windham – most of them dating to the 1800s. The town and state have cemetery laws, which are enforced, and these should be checked out before any cemetery trek. Windham Historical Society can provide a list and location of the graveyards, and a brief history of each.

If the Chute Cemetery is haunted, it’s more likely by the spirits of Josiah Chute and John Swett, two friends and neighbors who served in the Revolutionary War, and who now may be visiting in the shadows of their former homes, within sight of their final resting place.