Does Buffalo, Iowa, Have a Haunted Cemetery?

Over the time that mankind has walked the earth, countless histories have been lost to time. Civilizations have risen and fallen, ground to dust by the passing eons. Their stories – and the stories of the people who lived in them, slip away and are gone in a moment.

Wow. Isn’t that a cool intro? While it’s very true, I want to bring our focus in a little bit. Let’s go a little less, “through the vast reaches of time” and move into something a little more cozy, like a small Iowa town nestled into the river bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River.

In the late 1950’s, a story from Buffalo, Iowa, was published in a local paper during the spooky season in October 1959. It was about a caretaker working in – what else – a haunted cemetery. What better thing to talk about before Halloween?

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The caretaker stopped and listened for a moment.

The original article didn’t give him a name, so we’ll call him Jim. Jim sounds nice, right? Anyway….

The cemetery was quiet; so quiet that it was almost like a physical presence, pressing against his ears. He had been mowing between the headstones when he swore he heard something.

It had sounded like pounding.

Jim wondered what it was. Maybe someone was working on something over in town and the sound carried over. Yeah, that must have been it.

Starting the mower, he went back to work.

When he had finished, he put the mower away and began to walk back across the cemetery. The sun had just started to go down, its light casting long shadows from the gravestones.

Jim loved this time of day. It felt like the whole world was starting to wind down and start settling in for the coming night. Suddenly he stopped. He had heard it again.

Thump…thump…thump….

This wasn’t coming from the surrounding neighborhoods. Now that the mower was off, he could hear clearly, and it was coming from inside the cemetery.

But what on earth could it be, he wondered?

He began to walk around, looking for what might be making the noise and where it was coming from. Every so often he would stop and listen, then walk toward the sound. It was loud enough that he could hear it, but it sounded muffled.

Gradually, Jim made his way closer to the sound. As he did, it became a little louder. But it was still muffled, which made Jim think that was coming from inside something. Finally, he found where the sound was coming from.

It was a grave. It wasn’t the oldest one in the cemetery, but a glance at the dates on the headstone told him that it was a few decades old at least.

What could make a sound like that? he wondered. There was just a headstone, nothing else. There wasn’t anything here that was hollow.

Thump…thump…thump….

This time, Jim realized where it was coming from. It was coming from beneath the ground. Beneath him.

No, he thought. There wasn’t anything down there that would be thumping anything.

Thump…thump…thump….

Steeling himself, Jim got down on his knees, then bent forward, putting his ear to the ground. The soft green blades tickled his skin as he drew in his breath and held it, listening as hard as he could.

Thump…thump…thump….

With a cry, Jim scrambled back to his feet, getting up so fast that he lost his balance. He almost fell, but he was able to right himself. He began to run, slowly at first and then faster.

Something down in that damn grave was knocking! There wasn’t anything down there except the dead, and dead people weren’t supposed to be knocking on anything!

Jim cleared the edge of the cemetery and kept running. He needed a drink.

                                                          —

The inside of the tavern was relatively quiet. For the most part, it was just the regulars, locals who liked to come in for a few drinks and talk sports or solve the problems of the world. Their voices were a low murmur, drifting across the bar room like the cigarette smoke in the air.

Without warning the front door burst open, slamming against the wall as Jim ran into the room. He stood for a moment, bent forward with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Everyone had turned to look at him, wondering what was going on with him.

After a moment, Jim crossed over to a bar stool and sat down. He asked the bartender for a shot of whiskey. The bartender nodded silently, staring wide-eyed. He only glanced away for a moment as he reached for the bottle of amber liquid behind the bar.

As soon as he poured the drink, Jim grabbed the shot glass and downed it. He motioned for another. The bartender poured again, and Jim gulped the second shot just as fast as he had the first.

“What the hell happened to you, Jim?” the bartender asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“I did!” Jim shouted. “Down at the cemetery!”

One of the other patrons spoke up.

“The hell you did,” they said. “There’s no such thing.”

“The hell I didn’t!” Jim replied.

Silence fell across the room as Jim told his story.

“That knocking was coming from down in that grave. If you don’t believe me, then I’ll take you out and show you myself!” he said.

Someone in the room thought that was a good idea. Another agreed, and in just a few moments there was a group of people that wanted to go down to the cemetery.

Jim agreed and led the group back to the grave.

Slowly, one of them got down on their hands and knees and cautiously put their ear to the ground. Everyone held their breath. As they watched, the color drained out of the man’s face and his eyes went wide.

Raising his head off the ground, he whispered, “There’s something knocking down there.”

As he stood, another person got down and listened, then another. Soon everyone had taken a turn, and all of them heard the knocking sound.

The sun had long since sunk below the horizon, and the group stood under the stars, debating about what could be knocking down there under the ground. They came to the conclusion that the only way to know for sure was to dig it up and find out. Once that had been decided, they went back to the bar.

The next morning, the group returned to the grave and began to dig. After several feet, their shovels scraped across concrete. That was odd. Why was there a concrete slab inside the grave?

About then, one of the older men in the group spoke up. There had been something familiar to him about the person who was buried there, but it hadn’t hit him until he saw the concrete.

He explained that, years ago, when the person was still alive, they were very worried about water getting into his grave after he died. He couldn’t stand the thought of his coffin being underwater and he was determined to make sure that it would never happen.

Digging out his own grave, he carefully lined it with concrete, then made a concrete slab to go over the top of it. Essentially, he had designed a concrete box that would keep out the water and keep his body dry.

Looking down at the slab, the old man had remembered the story. Now they all knew that it was true.

Odd as it was, it still didn’t explain what was knocking in the grave. They were going to have to go deeper.

With no small amount of effort, the men were able to pry the slab up and out of the grave. There, underneath, they found their answer.

Despite the best efforts of the person who was buried there, the concrete box he had designed was filled with water. Over the years, cracks had formed and allowed water to seep in. Enough got in to actually make the coffin float, and as it did it bumped against the concrete slab that covered it, making the knocking sound.

The group had their answer now, floating gently in the grave below. It really had been the dead man knocking inside the grave, just not the way they had thought.

Carefully as they could, they replaced the concrete slab, then refilled the grave.

Okay – so the cemetery wasn’t really haunted. But Jim the caretaker thought it was. And I bet at least one or two of those people who dug up the grave thought it was, too. Honestly, I might have even thought it was.

It’s a great story, and one that was, according to the author of the newspaper article, shared in the town. But some people decided to change it a little bit. They said that there really had been a ghost. In their version, it really was the spirit of the man in the coffin, banging at his coffin lid.

Personally, I prefer the original story. The image of a man digging his own grave and lining it with concrete is just so bizarre. It also raises a few questions for me.

Why was he so bothered by the grave being underwater? Had he experienced something in his life where he didn’t want to see his body covered in water? Was it just a thought that made him cringe and he couldn’t stand it?

I’ll most likely never know the answer in this life. Maybe after I die one day, I’ll get a chance to meet him, and I can ask him myself.

 

 

Sources

Excursions Into Supernatural of the Quad Cities. Quad City Times, 10/25/1959