On December 21st in 1620 the Pilgrims, seeking freedom from religious persecution found land after a long and dangerous journey from England. Today, people still continue to land in the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. They come for many reasons. Some come for the historical aspects. Some come to renew basic beliefs about democracy, life, liberty and the ability to live free. Some come to Plymouth to hunt answers…. and to hunt ghosts.

Plymouth Town is located not too far from Boston, Cape Cod, and Salem and is centrally located to various locales and activities…in particular, haunted houses, cemeteries and businesses. One of the more notorious cemeteries is Burial Hill, where most of the original pilgrims were buried. The tombstones themselves are curious. One tombstone has a ‘weeping’ cross on it that no one can explain. Anomalies are often found in and around this cross. Several of the headstones have skull and crossbones on them.

The entire town of Plymouth seems to be ‘thick’ with presence, which may be due to the fact that most of the buildings in the downtown area are quite old and are furnished with antiques that sometimes predate the buildings they are in. “ Sometimes objects themselves can retain psychic imprints from their past owners,” states Hans Holzer, a leading expert on the paranormal. Given the age of the buildings and the sheer amount of human drama which they must have witnessed, it is no wonder that these walls ‘talk’.

A disturbing bit of lore states that the city officials, in an attempt to modernize the downtown area, required the adjoining land which housed a very old cemetery dating back to the 1700’s or so. They did not bother to dig up the bodies, but rather moved the headstones. Another cemetery, one of the first cemeteries used by the Pilgrims, is called Cole's Hill. When someone died they were secretly taken there and buried so that the Indians would not know how small the settler's group was getting. Ectoplasm has been photographed there.

Buildings have since been built over the cemetery and the ‘fun’ has never stopped. One such building is the Cortage Park building where lights are affected, objects moved and removed, and voices can be captured using EVP techniques. Most who have hunted there report great pictures of ectoplasm and at least several of the people who live in the haunted bed and breakfasts have seen what they believe are full sized ghosts (apparitions).

Carl Sandburg, a famous poet once said, “Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.” With those few short lines he seems to be able to perfectly capture what is going on in Plymouth. One of the nation’s oldest civilizations, filled to the brim with all the emotional highs and lows that mankind has to offer, it is certain that the layers are there to be discovered. The ghosts of Thanksgivings past.