Location: Spider Gates Cemetery
City: Leicester, Massachusetts
This was one of those investigations that reminds me of how awesome it
is to be a member of Maine Ghost Hunters. On this particular
investigation day, I have to tell ya, "I'm lovin' life". We left Maine
somewhere around 8:00 in the morning and made a leisurely commute to
the great state of Massachusetts where the much-rumored-about "8th gate
to hell" resides. Tucked in the back woods of a somewhat remote area,
surrounded by brush, trees, and fields of farmland lay the prize;
Spider Gates Cemetery.
Spider Gates Cemetery is one of those graveyards who's reputation
precedes it. It's sad, really, when I think about it, because at the
root of all the stories lay the relative of someone who's ears these
rumors may meet. It's my perception that people forget that they're
talking about someone's mother, father, brother, uncle, cousin, or
otherwise, when they tell these stories of evil that take place within
cemeteries such as Spider Gates. I'll tell ya, when made the trip to
the Friend's Meetinghouse Cemetery in Leicester, Massachusetts I was
wholly preparing myself for a downright menacing experience. I had
heard of ooze emerging from the ground, apparitions of small children,
a "hanging tree" which sometimes 
reveals the reason it bares the name,
satanic rituals and cults, and the manifestations those satanic rituals
produce.
What I found when we finally arrived at the entrance to Spider Gates
Cemetery was a beautiful, serene atmosphere who's grounds are
impeccably neat, clean, and obviously cared for by people who are
wholly vested in honoring those interred persons at rest here. I can't
tell you how wonderful the area looked and felt. It was simply
breathtaking. It makes me want to give a scowling look of disapproval
to people who pass such awful rumors about this location. The grounds
are absolutely stunning. The stone wall that encompasses the outer
perimeter of the cemetery has been neatly hand made by stacking rock
upon rock, stone upon stone, and each one appears to be laid in place
and held there by gravity and the weight of those stones above. There
is no cement holding this wall together. It is meticulously maintained
and rarely did we observe a stone out of place.
The headstones aren't nearly as ornate as those stones in Puritan based
cemeteries I've written about in the past, but they do depict a burial
period that transcends the past couple of centuries. The rumor that
this burial ground is no longer used is a flat out lie. We observed
that a person was buried here as recently as this past year, 2008. The
headstones themselves may be simple, lacking much more than simple
epitaphs, names, and dates of birth and death, but their simplicity
exudes a certain level of beauty that is entirely communal. It's as
though the message you receive in this place is that these people lived
as a community and they rest in peace, for eternity, as a community.
We have been to a few cemeteries in the past, and 
none have felt as warm and inviting as
Spider Gates.
We were able to take a walk around the grounds and check out the
different rumored sites of interest. For instance, the "altar"
location in the center of the cemetery. It is said that Satanic
Rituals may be performed here on a regular basis by visiting Satanists,
which is why the area appears to be cordoned off in some purposeful
way. That "purposeful way" , according to rumor, is supposedly
designed by the Satanists. The more historically accurate version of
this "altar" area is that it's almost certainly the footprint of the
original Friends Meeting House foundation. I was overtaken with the
sheer beauty of the trees that grace the center of this beautiful
cemetery and was somewhat affronted by the notion that anyone could
consider this place to be any level of "evil".
We ventured toward one of the back walls of the cemetery where we
noticed some upright-
standing granite blocks averaging a
height of roughly 3 to 4 feet tall. TonyL thought this area could have
been considered the "altar" area, or an "altar" area as well, but we
were at a loss for an ultimate conclusion as for what this was more
likely used for. We took notes of "the hanging tree", and the "note"
we took was that the limb used for the hanging is quite a distance off
the ground. The breadth of the tree would make it very unlikely that
anyone who hung themselves from it "shimmied" their way to the limb.
Basically speaking, you'd have to really, really, want to hang yourself
from this particular tree in order to get the job done, because the
effort you'd have to go through to actually do it, is quite an involved
process. I'm not saying a young boy didn't hang himself from this
tree, I'm just saying he had to be exceptionally tall, incredibly
talented at climbing the, virtually, un-climbable - or both. We didn't
see any apparitions of ghostly children while visiting Spider Gates,
but we did hear sounds that sounded like eerie children for a brief
second. Turned out to be high pitched birding vocals. I'll admit, it
took me by surprise for a brief second, but once the sounds were
identified as birds, and were repeated often throughout the rest of our
time on the Quaker grounds, all was fine.
The apparitions we had read about that appear in this area were
basically a little girl, a little boy, and a slightly pre-teen or early
teen boy. There's an awful story, that dates a few decades back, of a
6 year old boy from a nearby boy's home that was beaten to death by one
of the older teen-boy's from the home. His body was dragged through
the woods and stuffed into a culvert. The story is heartbreaking and
the location of the culvert, which we found, intensified the grisly
nature of the crime, start to finish. The culvert was so small in its
initial opening that it's hard to imagine the condition the boy's body
was in if he was, indeed, stuffed into this culvert as we saw it. As
TJ explained, the culvert's initial opening is small, but it "opens up"
when you look farther inside. It's a dark hole under a less-than-busy
dirt road. I'm doubting many people, if any at all, traveled this
route on a regular basis.
We took notice of the beautiful Kettle Brook, at a few different
points, as well as the gloomy and buggy
swamp areas that lay beyond the burial
ground. It's important to note that there are 2 swampy areas, only 1
of which claims the paranormal activity. Spider Gates Cemetery,
itself, is not the location much of the paranormal activity in this
area is reported. It's at the bottom of the hill near the swampy area
that is a brief walk past the Spider Gates Cemetery.
Now, as for the term "the 8th gate to hell" or Spider Gates Cemetery
contains "8 gates to hell", both are preposterous accusations. The
cemetery itself has only 1 official entrance and that entrance is
enclosed by 3 gates, each of which contain a wrought iron decoration in
the center which resemble what many have compared to "the sun's rays"
or "a spider web". It is a fact that at least one of the gates is a
reproduction since the original was stolen, and it is also a fact that
that 1 gate does not "equal" 8. I have read many variations of the "8
gates", my favorite tall-tale version being the one 
where "the close you get to the 8th, and
last gate..." the more apt you are to pass out. And that people have
not only passed out when approaching the 8th gate, but there are people
who have suffered heart attacks upon reaching the 8th gate, and there
has also been the occasional death-upon-reaching-the-8th-gate. The
short of it is, it's all pretty insulting to the community of Quakers
this place exists to serve, and to those community members buried
within. I was a little warmed by the notion that the official position
of the Quakers, concerning these rumors about their cemetery, is that
they find it all very humorous.
All-in-All the trip to Spider Gates was definitely a wonderful
experience. On the way out of the cemetery, as we were wrapping things
up and approaching our car, 6 more people in 3 different and unrelated
cars, were making their way to parking their various vehicles so they
could get a good look, and personally experience Spider Gates for
themselves. We were even fortunate enough to meet people who had heard
of us from our internet site. What a treat that was! If you're out
there and you're reading this, thanks for complimenting our site! We
were tickled pink, to say the least!
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