Since the 1960s and ‘70s, a legend has circulated high schools in the St. Charles area about a witch named Molly Crenshaw. Molly, it is said, was a freed Jamaican or Haitian practitioner of Voodoo who lived in the 1800s. Her charms were occasionally sought after, but after one particularly nasty drought or long winter, the locals turned against her and executed her. In order to prevent her from rising from the grave, they chopped her body into pieces and buried the pieces in the woods around a remote cemetery. It wasn’t enough. Year after year, the pieces crawl closer together. Anyone who successfully locates Molly’s grave will meet a gruesome end. According to a local English teacher at Francis Howell High School, “There was a story about two football players who went looking for the grave in the 1950s. They found it and tried to take the tombstone. They met with an untimely end. The sheriff’s deputies found their bodies impaled on the graveyard fence.” As far as local historians are concerned, there is no basis for the legend. Mollie Crenshaw did exist, but she was neither Jamaican nor Haitian, and she died in 1913 after swallowing carbolic acid. That has not prevented Molly Crenshaw from becoming one of the most popular and enduring legends in St. Charles County. Crenshaw’s surviving relatives removed her gravestone in 1979 to prevent further damage, but every year hundreds of thrill seekers still search for it.
Felix’s Grave - St. Joseph, Missouri
Felix-Liliger Cemetery sits on a hill surrounded by an old weather-beaten wrought iron fence, deep in the Sun Bridge Conservation Area. Named after the Kansa Indian belief that they ascend to the afterlife on a sun bridge, the Conservation Area runs along the Missouri River north of St. Joseph, Missouri. There are perhaps a dozen headstones in the tiny graveyard. Over the years, many visitors have travelled to this remote location to find “Felix’s Grave.” There are many different stories about Felix. Some say he murdered his family, or that he died in a car accident and his body was never recovered. According to another legend, a witch was hung in an old oak tree in the cemetery and buried beneath it. Her headstone, which warns “here I lie, cross this grave and you’ll surely die,” allegedly glows at night. The cemetery has suffered vandalism in the past. In 1980, Elizabeth Liliger’s grave was dug up, and only some pieces of the coffin were ever recovered.
Mary Jane’s Grave - Middletown, Minnesota
Deep in the swampy woods north of Spirit Lake and the Minnesota-Iowa border, lies Loon Lake Cemetery. Now abandoned, fewer than 18 of the original 67 headstones remain. According to legend, in 1881 the townspeople of the nearby village of Petersburg accused an 18-year-old girl named Mary Jane Terwileger (sometimes simply known as Mary Jane) of being a witch and beheaded her. She was buried on a hill in Loon Lake Cemetery. Their troubles with witches did not stop there, however, and they saw fit to execute two more young women in subsequent years. The graves of these women became something of a local tourist attraction, so their headstones were removed to protect them from vandals. Unfortunately, the exact location of Mary Jane’s grave has been forgotten, and legend says that anyone who walks across it will die within 72 hours. According to one account, “This was perpetuated by reports of a young man who walked over the grave while hunting in the area. On the way home, a heavy fog ascended, and after he pulled his car over, he suffered carbon monoxide poisoning.” The cemetery is believed to be haunted by other anguished spirits as well.
The St. Omer Witch’s Grave - Ashmore, Illinois
St. Omer Cemetery is home to an unusual family monument that some say looks like a crystal ball on top a pyre. According to local lore, Caroline Barnes, one of four people buried under the massive stone, was put to death for practicing witchcraft. It is said that no pictures can be taken of her monument, and that it glows on moonless nights. The only evidence for the legend seems to be the gravestone’s dramatic design, the way local citizens grow nervous whenever the story is mentioned, and most strikingly, Caroline’s impossible date of death chiseled in the granite: February 31. The monument also faces north and south, while most headstones are oriented east-west. There is no historical or documentary evidence supporting the notion that Caroline Barnes was accused of witchcraft, but never-the-less, the legend has persisted.
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