Williamsburg Hill Ridge Cemetery Investigation

Williamsburg Hill is supposedly the highest point in Shelby County, elevation 788’. Peaceful mound-building Indians were the first to settle here but were later annihilated by not-so-friendly Indiana that came after. Native American Indians warned the White settlers not to settle here.

In 1818, when Shadrach Bond was governor, Illinois was admitted to statehood. It was during that time that the first settlers came to Williamsburg Hill. At first, there were eight families. Charles Wakefield, Sr., his wife, and three married sons were one of the first families to settle there. Mr. Wakefield was the first to buy land from the government at $1.25 per acre. The entry to that sale was made, in 1821, at the state capital, in Vandalia, Illinois.

The first schoolhouse was erected near here and Moses Story was the schoolmaster.

In 1839 a man by the name of Dr. Thomas Williams and William Horsman were the first settlers that formed part of the town, Cold Springs. The town once swelled to a population of around 2,000. There was a stagecoach route that ran from Vandalia to Shelbyville that grew the town rapidly called "Old Anglin’ Road"

At one time, there were two churches, a doctor‘s office, a saloon, a post office, a blacksmith shop and a number of modest homes. Orville Robertson carried on a general store, Dr. Thomas J. Fritts administered to the sick, and J.W. Torbutt was the blacksmith of the village. J.P. Dunaway was the carpenter and builder.

The end came in 1880 when the Beardstown, Shawneetown and Southeastern Railroad constructed their line to the east of the village that bypassed the town which was the downfall for the Williamsburg Hill area. Settlers moved to the town closer to the railroad station and this area became a ghost town. There were still buildings standing here until 1960. The town was built upon a layer of gravel with topsoil over that was probably due to glacial activity during the Ice Age. A Mastodon bone was also found here.

People practice Witchcraft out here at night during a solstice. There are unfortunately reports of vandalism and grave desecration in the past.

A mythical dragon has been seen circling the hill. Native American Indians would report that the creature would swoop down, carrying off livestock and children! This beast hasn’t been seen in over a century but there are those who believe it may be in deep slumber in a nearby cave.

Address: Between Shelbyville & Tower Hill, off CR 1100E, Shelby County (Nearest address, 1008 E. 590 North Road, Tower Hill, Illinois 62571)

GPS: 39°18’050”, 088°55’999”

Hauntings: An elderly man runs out in the woods, screams in people’s faces before disappearing, cattle mutilations, monstrous creatures, big cats or phantom panthers, strange sounds and UFO and alien-type activity. A three-year old little girl got lost that lived up the road nearby and her parents found walking half-way up the lane to the cemetery. They picked her up and brought her back home. A week later they were driving past the cemetery and the little girl pointed up the lane and said that I want to go live with the people back there. Her parents asked her what she was talking about and the girl said the people in the ground! She said that they want her to come back and live with them.

One eyewitness said he saw a large red ball of light take off from the hill and pass over his car which caused it to sputter and die. Many believe this may be a “window” or portal area where lots of strange things enter and disappear.

People see some strange lights here along with apparitions. A phantom funeral has been seen. A daytime visitor heard and noise and looked in that direction and saw a bunch of black shadows circling a coffin as though they were in mourning. She turned back around and they were gone.

Others report a strange man and a woman dressed in black encountered with in the cemetery.

There's another cemetery located down the hill in the woods called Horsman Cemetery, oneof the original founders of Cold Springs. Some activity may also be associated with that cemetery.

The Ghost Research Society investigated Williamsburg Hills on August 29, 2020 and the team members included: Mike Rosario, Kelly Griffey and Dale Kaczmarek, with help from Jason Snider, Jason Dickerson, Courtney Mendenhall and Courtney Bowen from Crawford County Illinois Ghost Hunter's Society

Equipment setup: Sony Nightshot IR camcorders were used along with digital recorders and cameras, IR binoculars, laser grids, Thermal Tablet and SB-7 Ghost Box.

Experiments performed: EVP and SB-7 Ghost Box sessions were conducted within the cemetery and near the laser grid and motion sensors experiment area. The Thermal Tablet was used around areas where past experiences have been reported with any success.

Personal experiences:

Kelly Griffey: There are 12 sound files from Williamsburg cemetery.  Here in numbers 13 and 19, I hear a slight vocalization sound (time stamp noted) but cannot tell what it says.  Files 14, 15, 16, 17, 20 and 21 have responses to the Phasma Box or Ovilus sessions.  In file #18 there is a fluctuation in the temperature noted.  In files 22 & 23 there are owl sounds, but in file #23 I also hear a whoosh sound (could this be the owl flying)?  In file #24 during an EVP session, a device was “pushed” out of one of Jason’s team member’s hand (it was resting on the palm of her hand and she was very startled when it fell).  None of the picture or video files I have picked up anything.

Mike Rosario: The following equipment that I used to investigate with here were: a K-II Meter, a Sony Night Shot Handy-Cam DCR-TRV13 NTSC 560 Digital-8 20X Optical Zoom Video Camcorder, an Amzdeal Tri-pod, a Green Laser Grid, a Philips Voice Recorder, and a Police Security Elite Blackout 615 Lumen Hands-free Heavy-Duty Head Strap Flashlight. This was an interesting cemetery to investigate. A lot of irregular sounds from in and around the cemetery were present, as well as strange balls of light were evident and detected from many investigators within the group.  I do remember where I even had to set up my green laser grid and point it directly in the direction of some movement that was detected with Jason's red laser grid. I did this so there was more laser coverage to get an accurate reading of any possible movement as possible. As far as evidence that I collected, it turned out that there were many bugs and insects that triggered some of my equipment, that's probably why many of our grids were detecting such movement. Unfortunately, no paranormal instances happened during the review of my footage, but it was a very interesting night for sure, and it does warrant another investigation back here at this location!

Dale Kaczmarek: Even though this was late August, it was very cold in the cemetery that evening. My arms were very cold and it made it difficult for me to focus on the job at hand; investigating.

For all the hype on this place, it was very quiet with nothing much in the form of evidence or interactions between any possible spirits that might have been there. I’m not contesting past investigators or investigations; sometimes areas can be quieter than usual at any given time.

There were plenty of dogs barking at the beginning of the first EVP session and later owls hooting away in the background which made for a creepy visit for sure!

Besides being cold, I did not experience or feel anything out of the ordinary while investigating Williamsburg Hill.

Evidence collected:

I didn’t Williamsburg.MP4 – while conducting a SB-7 Ghost Box session, a question was asked, “Did you say something about the old cemetery?” The device responded with a faint male voice that said, “I didn’t.” (This question was a follow-up question to, “Take radio old cemetery.”

Take radio old cemetery Williamsburg.MP4 – while conducting a SB-7 Ghost Box session, the device blurted out what kind of sounds like, “Take radio old cemetery.”  

Williamsburg Hill.MP4 – using a Thermal Tablet to try to detect temperature variations.

Words or phrases spoken by the SB-7 Ghost Box in a slower than normal sweep: Take radio old cemetery, I didn’t and take a rest. (There were a lot of random words that came through with no questions asked before the reply. I believe that the Ghost Box should have been sweeping channels a bit faster so as to not allow radio bleed-over to come through.)

Conclusions: I hate to say but I don’t believe we were properly prepared for the enormity or the location. More experiments should have been conducted with other real-time devices. An array of Nightshot camcorders should have been deployed to observe the laser grid and motion sensor experiment area and other locations were past paranormal activity was reported. It would have presented a real obstacle to thoroughly blanket this area with equipment due to the lack of physical objects for the extended infrared illuminators to shine on. Nightshot camcorders don’t illuminate the air but can brighten an area a bit more than the human eye can detect.

 During the first EVP Bowen said that she believed that her digital recorder was pushed out of her hand and fell to the ground. Others believed that they saw an interruption of the laser grid dots that could have indicated a spiritual presence of some kind. Unfortunately, I did not observe that.

Later on, several saw some strange sparkly objects moving through the laser grids. Since the green laser grid was completely saturating a small area, it could have been, in my opinion, bugs or insects flying through the dots, momentarily illuminating them as sparkly objects. It was a very quick observation and did not happen again.