Holy Cross Cemetery Investigation
When a cemetery runs out of room, what do you think the next order of business is? While it’s common sense to buy a new plot of land and establish a new one, there was a slightly different agenda over a century ago. Bodies were transported, but many bodies were left behind. Today, there are still caskets six feet in the ground with no headstones above them in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Why is this?
In the mid-1800s, there was an old Catholic cemetery people now call the old Pioneer Cemetery. It was donated in 1861 to Reverend Frederic Baraga with specific instructions not to use it for anything other than a free burial site. By 1897, there was little to no room left for any other bodies. They established the new Holy Cross Cemetery in Trowbridge Park, Michigan for all the new burials.
Here’s the catch: families of the already deceased were then being approached. The ones in charge of the cemetery preferred that all the bodies be together, so they asked permission to move old caskets and headstones to the new cemetery. Some family members agreed to this, others were disgusted and refused. Up until 1925, 165 bodies were relocated to the new cemetery. They are all grouped together in a section of Holy Cross.
While the old Pioneer cemetery has since been refurbished to have a park-like appearance in 2019, it is rumored to be severely haunted with cries of the deceased echoing in the night. Their attempts to keep the old and new burials together only led to unmarked graves, unlocated bodies, and a lot of disturbed spirits. In order for the disturbed spirits to find peace, we drove to the top of the upper peninsula to find them.
On Sunday, June 2, 2024, we traveled up to Marquette, Michigan, where the two cemeteries were located. We tried to navigate the original cemetery first, but we were unable to find it the first go-around. It wasn’t until we got to the other cemetery and met a passerby that we discovered the park was built over the old cemetery. He did give us directions to go back and find it ourselves, but we didn’t beat sundown once our Holy Cross investigation was through. With a four-hour drive home and work the next day, a sleepover in Michigan wasn't in the cards for us.
When we drove through Holy Cross, we came across multiple active plots before finding the old headstones. They were all grouped together in a section of the cemetery; some headstones still standing, others were resting on the ground in a few different pieces. The energy was much heavier on that side of the cemetery, which led us to believe there were some spirits left at old Pioneer and some spirits aimlessly wandering Holy Cross. More or less, you could sense confusion in the air, almost like you had to ask yourself why you were there. Neither of us can imagine how it must’ve felt to be at rest and then conjured back to a plain you’re no longer acquainted with.
While we observed the older headstones, I started an EVP recording from my phone. I rested it atop one of the headstones and left it alone for eight minutes. There was only a brief moment where it sounded like a faint breath came through, but otherwise there wasn’t much activity. There was a headstone Swan’s throat was tight in front of, so we set up a cat ball on it next. We received activity from the spirit attached to the headstone because the cat ball immediately started going off. It went off a few different times after the first, which debunked any chance of us setting it off ourselves.
Next, we drove over to the water where a mausoleum sat. We settled in on one of the benches for our Estes because we were further from traffic and believed the water would help the spirits communicate. We set boundaries to only speak with the disturbed spirits from the old cemetery and began the next part of our process.
For this investigation, I felt pulled to bring my Tarot cards. I was called to bring the inversion deck, which is the one I normally use for shadow work or energy blockages. I figured if any of the spirits were disturbed, the deck would aid us in helping them find peace. The headstone with the most activity was Lily Wallace’s, the spirit who set off our cat ball device. She was only seventeen when she passed, and we later discovered she died from pneumonia (confirming Swan’s throat complications). She left behind a husband and a two-year-old son named Henry. We asked her to come forward and speak, and I requested she tell us a story with the cards.
When I pulled three cards for her, it showed me a separation between a man and a woman. I fished for more information about her marriage and asked what happened. She said, “Close, long, noble. Either one.” We believe she was telling us she was separated from her husband but that their marriage was solid. Because this followed with, “If God is here, let me go. Show me,” we gathered she wanted to reunite with her husband. We told her we could walk her to him if she was ready, and we received the response, “I’m coming!”
We were briefly interrupted during our session by a male spirit who wanted to understand more about how our equipment worked. We explained all of our devices to him, and he was responding with words such as, “Program” and “What’s that?” to let us know he was paying attention. We believe this male spirit to be among the rest of the group who wanted to move on. After we explained our equipment, the spirit responded, “Water.” This response was intelligent because the spirit not only knew water was present, but they were also aware the water was a good conductor for energy.
We asked Lily to come back and set off our cat balls. She responded, “Alright,” almost immediately. From then until the end of our session, the cat ball closest to the camera kept going off. At the same time this was occurring, Swan was seeing a woman with a shadowy silhouette standing before her. It seemed Lily was very eager to move on.
She did come to a point where Lily asked what we did in order to move on. We explained to her we would perform a meditation that would aid her and her friends with crossing over. We told her this was an easy process, that she was deserving of it. She even told us she was motivated towards the end.
Through a few more minutes of conversing, we knew Lily was ready to go home to her husband. We ended our Estes, prepared a meditation circle, and walked the group of spirits to the other side. There was a real moment of stillness after the session had ended. It felt like a sigh of relief, or even like a moment of comfort. While we may never truly know what’s on the other side until we get there, we only hope Lily is happy wherever that may be.
Thanks for reading.
Supporting Links:
Comments