Hungry Hill: The Ghost's of Oniontown

Grim Mourning, and welcome to The Grim. In this haunting episode, host Kristin leads you through the Old Wethersfield Village Cemetery in Wethersfield, Connecticut, a quiet resting place steeped in colonial history, witchcraft, and ghostly legend.

Once home to the Wongunk people, this land became one of Connecticut’s earliest settlements. Here lie Puritan founders, Revolutionary heroes, and exiled witches, their stories carved into slate and sandstone. From Leonard Chester and Colonel John Chester to the tragic patriot Silas Deane, each grave whispers of a nation’s uneasy birth.

You’ll uncover the chilling tale of Katherine Harrison, accused of witchcraft decades before Salem, and explore reports of cold spots, phantom voices, and shadowy figures that still wander Hungry Hill.

Part history, part haunting, this episode unearths the forgotten souls of Old Wethersfield, where memory refuses to rest and the veil between past and present grows thin.

Step through the gate if you dare.

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Episode Transcript

Kristin (00:13):
Grim morning and welcome to the Grim.
I'm your host, Kristin.
Today we unlatch the gate ofOld Weathersfield Village
Cemetery, located inWeathersfield, Connecticut.
The aroma of coffee mingles inthe damp October air.
The gates stand open.
Step carefully.
It's time to descend into thehauntings of history.

(00:34):
As I write and research thisepisode, New England has finally
surrendered to a gray,rain-drenched day, with crisp
nights creeping close behind.
The weather feels like it wasconjured for the grim, a perfect
shroud for darker stories.
As a recent transplant from theMidwest, I still find myself
bewitched by New England's fall.

(00:55):
Many flock northward in searchof autumn's fire, but
Connecticut, without thecrushing crowds, holds its own
spectral beauty.
Weathersfield, in particular,is beginning to shine in that
golden October light.
It has the charm of a star'shollow-like town, but with
deeper colonial roots shadowingits streets.
When I first arrived in NewEngland, I carried the common

(01:17):
misconception that Salem was theonly true destination for
Halloween, and wish I'd knownsooner that this was far from
the truth, because towns likeWeathersfield, quietly waiting,
hold just as much enchantmentand far more mystery.
But before this wasWeathersfield, it was Pyquag,
home to the Wangukks.
For centuries they fished theConnecticut River, farmed its

(01:40):
fertile meadows, and lived in arhythm with the land.
Then came plague.
Smallpox decimated theirnumbers, rival tribes pressed
in.
And then when the Englisharrived in the 1630s, the
Wangukks, already weakened,offered land in exchange for
protection.
It was a bargain that wouldunravel.
By the late 1700s, their namehad disappeared from maps, their

(02:04):
people scattered or confined toreservations.
In 1634, ten Puritan souls,remembered as the Ten Men,
claimed this patch of earth fortheir own.
By 1638, their thoughts hadalready turned toward the grave.
They chose Hungry Hill, a riseby the river whose name is
wrapped in rumor and silence.
Some whisper the Wanggux oncefled there when the floods came.

(02:27):
Others believed the hill hadlong been sacred, touched by
older spirits.
Whatever the truth, here theground was first broken for
burial, and here the dead foundtheir gathering place, as if
summoned by the hill itself.
The peace proved fragile.
In 1637, as the Pequa Warraged, Wethersfield felt the
weight of violence.
Chief Sigwin of the Wangoks,who had once walked Wethersfield

(02:50):
as an ally, his presenceaccepted, if not entirely
trusted, was eventually exiledfrom the town.
But his exile bred bitterness,and when he returned, it was not
in friendship.
At his side came Pequawarriors, and together they fell
upon the town.
Six men and three women wereslain, livestock strewn to ruin,
and two young girls torn fromtheir families, their cries

(03:13):
carried into the wilderness.
Though Silverwood one dayransomed them home, the cost had
already been paid in sorrow.
Grief seeped into the groundlike blood.
But then came witchcraft.
Though Salem dominates ourimagination, Connecticut's earth
bore its own trials longbefore.
Mary Johnson was hung in 1648,the first woman executed for

(03:35):
witchcraft in New England.
In 1651, Joan and JohnCarrington met the same fate.
In 1669, Catherine Harrison, awealthy widow, was accused and
convicted.
Though spared execution, shewas banished and stripped of her
land.
Wetersfield, like Salem,carried its own dark frenzy with

(03:56):
witch hysteria.
Still, not all was in theshadow.
In 1701, the college schoolthat would become Yale briefly
took root here.
During the Revolution, PatriotSilas Dean called Weathersfield
home, and in 1781, GeorgeWashington met Rochambeau at the
Webb House to plan York, thefinal act that won American

(04:17):
independence.
For a time, Wethersfield becamenot known for war or
witchcraft, but for onions.
Known to many as Onion Town,its pungent-rent onions filled
the fields, shipped up and downthe coast.
Their sharp sense said to clingto the very air.
From the soil also grewComstock, Fear and Company, the
nation's oldest seed house.

(04:38):
And as if blood and earthweren't enough, the heavens left
their mark too.
In 1971, a meteorite torethrough a Weathersfield roof,
landing in the living room.
Eleven years later, anothermeteorite struck another house.
No one was hurt either time, asthough the cosmos only wished
to remind Weathersfield itwasn't forgotten.
At the heart of this all standsHungry Hill.

(05:00):
For Piritans, the rituals ofdeath were stripped of comfort
in their time.
No hymns, no prayers, no rites.
Funerals were stark, burialsswift.
The earliest markers only boreinitials, most are now lost to
time.
At the foot of the hill in thecemetery, the oldest stones
wait.
Slate and sandstone markersfrom the late 1600s, their

(05:22):
surfaces etched with starkimages, skulls and crossbones,
winged souls, hourglasses, eachcarving a sermon in stone.
Their skull and crossbonesremind every passerby that the
grave was certain.
The hourglass warns that timewas slipping away green by
green, and winged souls at firstgrim skulls sprouting wings,

(05:44):
later soften into cherubs,offering the faint promise of
ascension, that perhaps deathwasn't the final word.
Severe at first glance, butlinger a moment longer, and they
become strangely beautiful,even enchanting, symbols of
faith both fearful andunyielding.
When you climb a little higher,the stones then begin to shift.

(06:04):
By the 1700s and into the1800s, the Puritan harshness
gives way to sediment.
Here urn and willow dominate.
They earn a vessel for thesoul, the willow, forever
drooping in sorrow.
These stones don't mourn asmuch as they mourn.
They reflected culturebeginning to see death not as a
threat but as a grief to beshared.
One stone worth pausing besideis carved with two clasped

(06:28):
hands.
One sleeve is plain, the otherlaced.
Husband and wife locked intheir final farewell, or look to
another where hand pointsheavyward, assuring those left
behind that their loved one hadgone to their eternal home.
The scripture was softenedhere.
Evitats once stern now read,Gone Home, at rest, asleep in

(06:49):
Jesus.
Atop the Hungry Hill, theVictorian age takes hold.
Stones bloom with cherubs,flowers, long epithets that
stretch into verse.
Death is no longer a sermon offear.
It becomes a story of love,memory, and hope.
And when you pause to take inHungry Hill as a whole, it
reveals itself as a problem cestof belief.

(07:11):
At the base, the Puritanspreach with grim symbols.
Higher up the revolution'sgenerations soften their grief
into willow and urn, and at thecrest the Victorians turn
mourning into poetry.
Among these voices is one ofthe cemetery's oldest names,
Leonard Chester.
He was one of Weathersfield'soriginal ten men, a small band

(07:32):
of settlers who braved theunknown and carved a community
from the Connecticut Wilderness.
Chestern had left Englandbehind in its turmoil and rigid
faith, only to confront a newand harsher trial across the
ocean.
He lived here just fourteenyears before his death planed
him, a reminder of how shortlife was on the edge of
survival.
His monument, carved decadesafter his burial, was not simply

(07:56):
a marker, but a deliberate actof remembrance by those who came
after him.
They etched his name intoslates so that the colony's
first sacrifice would not beswallowed by time.
The stone itself is plain andsevere, unmistakably Puritan, no
flowing verse, no ornament,beyond the shape of its slab.
Yet in its ostrich it speaksvolumes.

(08:18):
It tells of a fragile colonywhere each death was a wound,
where every memory had to bechiseled into stone lest it be
lost.
To stand before Chester's graveis to feel the weight of
beginnings.
The colony itself was just asfragile as the man beneath the
soil, both vulnerable, bothclinging to survival.
His stone reminds us that evenfounders can be forgotten

(08:40):
without the stubborn work ofremembrance.
And here on Hungry Hill, wheresermons are preached in slate
and sandstone, Leonard Chester'sname still endures, carried
forward by the chisel of memory.
Not far away rests ReverendGersham Bulkley.
He was no ordinary clergyman.
His reach stretched beyond thepulpit.
Bulkelay practiced medicine andserved as a military chaplain

(09:04):
during King Philip's war.
Yet what shadows him most ishis ties to the witch trials.
He authored Will and Doom, amanuscript that thundered with
Puritan judgment, warning thatevil was always close, lurking
in neighbors, in whispers, inanything unexplained.
His grave is plain butcommanding, and even now the
soil seems to radiate thatseverity, as if it remembers the

(09:27):
weight of his warnings.
Step further in the Revolutionrises up.
Visitors can find the grave ofColonel John Chester, born here
in Weathersfield, who answeredthe call of liberty.
He led troops at Bunker Hill,where his regiment held fast
against British fire in one ofthe revolution's fiercest
battles.
He later endured the smoke ofthe White Plains, marched with

(09:50):
Washington, and weathered thebrutal winter at Valley Forge.
Returning home, he turned topolitics until his death in
1809.
His grave ties this quiet hillto the roar of cannonfire and
the birth of a nation.
Not far from Chester stands acenotaph for Sylas Dean, perhaps
Weatherfield's most tragic son.

(10:11):
Born to a blacksmith, he rosethrough ambition and intellect
to become one of Connecticut'swealthiest merchants, and one of
the revolution's firstdiplomats.
It was Dean who crossed theAtlantic in secret, persuading
France to arm the raggedContinental Army, securing
muskets, ships, and soldiers whowould help turn the tide at
Yorktown.

(10:31):
Dean should have beenremembered beside Washington,
Franklin, and Adams.
Instead, though, suspicionconsumed him.
Branded a traitor by his owncountrymen, accused of
profiteering, stripped of honorand fortune, Dean fled abroad.
In exile, his only companionwas his former colleague and
physician, Dr.
Edward Bancroft, who was laterto be revealed as a British

(10:55):
double agent.
When Dean prepared to sail homedeclare his name, Bancroft
supplied him with medicines forthe journey.
Aboard the ship, Dean collapsedsuddenly upon the deck and was
dead within hours.
Whether by illness, suicide, orperhaps a poison vial from
Bancroft's hand, no one couldsay.
His body lies somewhere inforeign soil, far from the

(11:17):
riverbank he once called home.
Only this stone remains, acenotaph for a patriot betrayed
by a nation he helped create.
And in Wethersfield, his namelingers like unfinished
business, a ghost of loyalty andloss that history has yet to
set free.
Beyond the carved names andweathered slate-like graves you

(11:38):
can't see.
The earliest burials on HungryHill were marked only by wooden
crosses or initials scratchedinto soft stone that have long
since vanished.
Some may have even belonged tothe Wangux, the native people
who first named this placePiquag, their presence now
buried under centuries ofcolonial stone.
Others were children lost toepidemics, servants whose names

(12:02):
were never recorded, or paupersburied without ceremony.
Their absence is its own kindof monument, reminding us that
cemeteries always hold more thanwe know.
And then there's the ghost ofCatherine Harrison.
Though she's not buried here,her presence clings to Hunger
Hill like a chill that neverlifts.
Once a servant, she rose infortune after her husband, John

(12:25):
Harrison, died in 1666, leavingher one of the wealthiest women
in Weathersfield.
She chose not to remarry, andthat more than any spell
unsettled her neighbors.
A widow with land, influence,and no man to govern her was a
dangerous one, especially in hertime.
Soon came whispers of fortunetelling, spectral visitations,

(12:46):
and secret dealings with thedevil himself.
In 1668, the accusations becamea flood, but notably two years
after her husband's death, butnone prior.
Neighbors claimed she bewitchedcattle, red palms by the
firelight, and summoned beeswith an unholy power.
Others swore she had cursedthem, poisoned them, and stolen

(13:08):
their strength.
Her trial in 1669 became aspectacle of fear and envy.
Testimony stacked upontestimony until a jury found her
guilty.
Yet even in that dark moment,the court hesitated to spill her
blood.
Her death sentence wasoverturned, but her punishment
was exile, banishment fromMothersfield, her property

(13:29):
seized, her name blackenedbeyond repair.
She fled to Westchester, NewYork, where there even her
reputation followed, her newneighbors trying to drive her
out once more.
For years she fought to reclaimher dignity, her land, her
life.
But then the silence.
Records fade after 1672, thoughsome say she died a decade

(13:50):
later, alone and unremembered.
But here among the stones ofWethersfield, her absence is
louder than any grave.
It's a haunting without a tomb,a silence that hums with
injustice, like exile itselfcarved into the air.
Yet Old Weathersfield is notonly layered with history, it's
steeped in ghost stories,whispered legends, and accounts

(14:14):
the uncanny.
The supernatural seems to clingto Hungry Hill and its burying
grounds as stubbornly as themoss on its stones.
The Webdean Stevens Museumhosts the Witches and Tombstone
tours, nightwalks throughWeathersfield's colonial core
that lean into its spectralreputation.
Guides speak of apparitionsdrifting through the ancient

(14:34):
burying ground, shadows thatlinger among the headstones long
after dusk, and ghostly figurestied to the town's witch trial
legacy.
Wethersfield's trials predatedSalem by nearly 30 years.
And though Salem may hold thefame, these grounds carry their
own darker truths.
Visitors report a wait in theair, a sense that judgment and

(14:57):
fear have seeped into the soilitself.
Beyond that tour is a booktitled The Beckoning, true
accounts of the hauntings in OldWeathersfield, gathers alleged
experiences of the paranormalactivity in the town.
The stories are anecdotal,unverified, but haunting
nonetheless.
Accounts of householdsdisturbed, figures glimpsed, and

(15:19):
presences felt.
They're told as truths by thosewho lived them, passed along as
part of the town's ghostlyfabric.
Even in casual spaces,Wethersfield's haunted name
endures.
Tourism and ghost huntingwebsites alike ring
Weathersfield amongConnecticut's haunted towns,
citing its early witch trials,its colonial cemeteries, and its

(15:41):
spectral reputation.
Whether through museum tours,online chatter, or word of
mouth, the consensus is thesame.
Old Weathersfield is a placewhere the past still walks.
And then there are the storiesthat people carry away with
them.
Accounts that blur the linebetween imagination and
haunting, yet persist all thesame.

(16:01):
Visitors whisper voicesdrifting through the burying
ground.
Not conversations you canfollow, but murmurs, low,
fractured, and ancient.
Threads of speech that seem tobelong to another century.
They rise and fall with thewind impossible to pin down, but
undeniable when the night growsstill.
Others speak of sudden coldspots, drops in temperature

(16:24):
sharp enough to make the skinprickle, often near the oldest
stones, or along the cemeterywall.
The feeling is uncanny, asthough someone stands just
behind you, unseen, but closeenough to breathe.
At twilight, shapes are said tomove between the graves.
Some dissolve when approached,others linger just long enough
to send a chill racing down thespine.

(16:46):
Their outlines are faint, butthe dread they leave behind is
sharp and immediate.
And then there's the footsteps,heavy, deliberate, the sound of
boots on gravel or dry leavesalong a path no one else is
walking.
To hear them is to know you'renot alone, though your eyes
insist otherwise.
In photographs 2, the cemeterybetrays itself.

(17:08):
Orbs of light float abovecertain stones, growing pale and
faint, like lanterns bobbing inthe dark, or will-o-wisps
conjured from the colonial dead.
Hungry Hill is a place wherehistory lingers.
But these stories suggestsomething more: that here memory
has grown restless and refusesto remain silent.

(17:29):
I should also say for thosecompelled to make the trip that
Weathersfield is a wonderful dayvisit, but it leans far more
into history than Halloween.
You won't find streets linedwith shops of Halloween trinkets
or stage scares here.
What you will find is somethingquieter, older, and to us at
the grim something far richer.
For others, that might not beideal, so plan your visit with

(17:52):
that in mind.
As for us, we'll keep walkingthese colonial streets and
lingering in this burying groundon Hungry Hill, savoring every
shadow, every whisper of thepast, lovering every moment this
quaint, haunted corner of NewEngland history has.
For now the stories of OldWeathersfield slip back into
stone, and the dead return totheir uneasy rest, yet they're

(18:16):
never silent for long.
Thank you for walking with usthrough the veil into Old
Weathersfield Cemetery,descending once more into the
hauntings of history.
The gate is sealed, the veildrawn.
Yet death keeps no calendar,and so we shall return, as we
always do, on the grim.