The Eighteenth-Century Burial Ground Locals Call Blood Cemetery
Pine Hill Road, Hollis, NH 03049
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public cemetery. The grounds are closed between dusk and dawn and patrolled by Hollis police; trespassing after hours is enforced.
Access
Limited Access
Uneven grass and gravel paths over rolling hillside
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1769 · Eighteenth-Century Burial Ground · New England Folklore Site
Pine Hill Cemetery sits along Pine Hill Road in Hollis, New Hampshire, a small town in the southern part of the state near the Massachusetts border. The land was donated to the town in 1769 by Benjamin Parker Jr., making the cemetery one of the older burial grounds in the region. It has remained an active municipal cemetery since then.
The Blood family, prominent in the local genealogical record, were buried in a section near the center of the grounds. Among them was Abel Blood, who died in 1867. His headstone became the focus of regional folklore in the late twentieth century, when stories spread that the carved finger on the stone pointed upward by day and downward at night. The original headstone has since been broken by vandals and is no longer in place; replacement and repair efforts are documented by the Nutfield Genealogy project and other local historical researchers.
Persistent vandalism through the 1990s and 2000s prompted the town of Hollis to install surveillance cameras, close the cemetery between dusk and dawn, and increase police patrols. Visitors are welcome during daylight hours but should be aware that any after-hours presence is treated as trespass.
Sources
The folklore around Pine Hill Cemetery is one of the more durable rural New England ghost stories. Its centerpiece is the headstone of Abel Blood, who died in 1867. The stone was carved with a hand, finger extended upward toward heaven in the conventional nineteenth-century funerary gesture. Local tradition holds that after dark the carved finger turns downward, only to point upward again by morning.
The physical stone has been broken and removed in recent decades following repeated vandalism, so the inversion phenomenon now exists only in historical photographs and in the oral tradition surrounding the site. Several local historians, including the Nutfield Genealogy researchers, have written about the social history of the Blood family and the way their burial plot accidentally gave the cemetery its colloquial name.
Beyond the headstone itself, visitors and Hollis residents have reported other phenomena along Pine Hill Road. A phantom child is said to flag down passing cars and then vanish when drivers stop. Cameras and other electronics are reported to malfunction near the gates. Some visitors describe sudden cold pockets in otherwise warm weather. These reports are part of the standard New England rural-cemetery repertoire and predate the active paranormal-tourism era.
The cemetery is now an active focus for the town of Hollis's anti-vandalism efforts. The closure between dusk and dawn is strictly enforced, and surveillance cameras cover the access points. Visitors should treat the site as a working town cemetery, not as a paranormal destination.
Notable Entities
Walk the rolling hillside of Pine Hill Cemetery during posted daytime hours. Locate the surviving Blood family stones in the central section; Abel Blood's original 1867 headstone, the one associated with the legendary pointing-hand carving, has been broken by vandals and is no longer in place. Respect the grounds, observe the dusk-to-dawn closure, and note the active surveillance and police patrols.
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Hollis, NH
Pine Hill Cemetery in Hollis, New Hampshire, was donated by Benjamin Parker Jr. in 1769 and is one of the older Hillsborough County burial grounds. The cemetery's better-known nickname, Blood Cemetery, derives from the prominent Blood family plot, including the 1867 grave of Abel Blood, a Christian philanthropist whose memorable surname helped seed the cemetery's modern folklore.
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Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a 62-acre cemetery at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood, California, founded in 1899 as Hollywood Cemetery on a 100-acre tract of former farmland. Paramount Pictures' studios occupy 40 acres of the original cemetery property. The cemetery was renamed Hollywood Memorial Park in 1939 and Hollywood Forever in 1998 after a 1990s bankruptcy and revival. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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