Abandoned Chautauqua County Cemetery with Colonial-Era Burials
Jamestown, NY
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No public admission cost. Rural access point; respect surrounding private property.
Access
Limited Access
Unmaintained rural terrain; uneven ground, likely overgrown
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1800 · Chautauqua County Pioneer Families · Civil War Loss · Fenton Historical Society Research
Hollenbeck Cemetery is a small nineteenth-century burial ground on Moon Road near Moon Creek in the Town of Ellicott, Chautauqua County, New York, just outside the city of Jamestown. Documented by the Chautauqua County genealogical site at chautauqua.nygenweb.net and Find a Grave, the cemetery contains between roughly 25 and 35 burials and is named for the Hollenbeck family, with other interments including the Aldrich, Brown, Eggenberger, Hough, Oakley, Trude, Wample, and Moon families — the latter giving the access road and creek their names.
The cemetery's most documented modern event occurred in mid-1995, when the headstones were stolen from the site. On February 8, 1996, the Township of Ellicott placed a central memorial to commemorate the burials that had been left unmarked. Almira Hollenbeck — daughter of Daniel and Phebe Hollenbeck, born October 19, 1826 — is among the documented family members associated with the cemetery; Ida E. Hollenbeck, granddaughter of Daniel and Phebe, died December 31, 1865, at age 11. The cemetery's location and pioneer-era burials fit the broader pattern of Ellicott township family graveyards established by early-19th-century settlers from the Holland Land Purchase region of western New York.
Sources
Hollenbeck Cemetery has accumulated a substantial roster of reported phenomena across regional paranormal databases: a headless horseman said to chase visitors, a woman in white, sounds of babies crying and children laughing, knocking from beneath the ground, and the rough physical sensation of being grabbed or pushed near the cemetery's central memorial.
Investigators who have written publicly about the site, including the Pennsylvania Rambler blog, note that the 1995 headstone theft left the cemetery in a state of visible disturbance that almost certainly amplified its haunted reputation. None of the reported phenomena trace to a named witness or dated investigation report, and no recorded historical event at the cemetery (deaths of the documented Hollenbeck family children notwithstanding) corresponds to the specific apparition accounts. The cemetery functions today primarily as a site of vandalism recovery and family-history pilgrimage rather than active burial.
Notable Entities
Roughly 15 to 25 legible grave markers survive in this small abandoned cemetery off Moon Road near Moon Creek in Ellicott township. The stones document the Hollenbeck, Wellington, Moon, and Brown families from the 1800s, including multiple child burials. The site has not been actively maintained and requires careful footing.
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