Bingham Hill Cemetery (between Fort Collins and Laporte, Colorado) may or may not be a haunted cemetery. It is definitely an unusual pioneer graveyard. Established around 1862, it originally held mostly unmarked grave sites. Even if there was a stone, it didn’t necessarily have writing on it – and there were no burial records.
In the 1980s, over a hundred years later, local farm owner Rose L. Brinks managed to discover the names of over 150 people buried in the cemetery and published the book “History of the Bingham Hill Cemetery.” Those people are listed on two large stones at the back of the grounds.
Since then, many of the graves have received new tombstones. This is something I have never seen (at least not on such a scale): modern gravestones with birth and death dates from the 1800s! Even more fascinating, I found the combinations of seeing the same name and dates on an old grave marker and on a modern one right next to it.
Being used to mostly urban cemeteries in Europe, I was also struck by all the pennies and dimes on the stones and the toys around graves of children who had died 150 years ago. I’ve not seen those traditions before. Personally, I also found the juxtaposition between faded plastic flowers and ancient rocks very photogenic.
As with most of my 1-minute videos, I’ve had to decide to not show a lot of what I filmed. One decision was easy, I wasn’t going to include any of the memorials to people who have passed away in the last few years out of respect to them and their families. Photos of other things I had to leave out of the video, I will post on my personal blog soon…
I am a bit disappointed that I couldn’t find room to include the amazing huge and hollow tree along the path to the cemetery – especially with the big goose sitting on top of it when I returned an hour later to pick up the sunglasses I had dropped in the graveyard – or did a ghost pull them out of my back pocket?
While there are accounts of ghosts and spirits in the cemetery, I didn’t encounter anything unusual – but then I’m also not looking for something on that level. I can tell you that it was super windy and freezing when I first got there – but then it became sunny and warm. And my dog Whiskey had as much fun as she always does.
Unfortunately, the reported guest book was no longer there. Apparently, people had been stealing the books so often that there isn’t one any longer. People can be so lame!
The song in this video is called “Acoustic Meditation” and was written and performed by Jason Shaw, who made this song available via the CC BY 3.0 license. Thank you, Jason!
