1863 Garden Cemetery on Williamsport's West End
1209 Cemetery St, Williamsport, PA 17701
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access during posted hours.
Access
Limited Access
Paved roads through hilly, wooded grounds; many monuments on slopes
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1863 · Victorian Rural Cemetery · Williamsport Lumber-Era Burials · Lycoming County Heritage Site
The Wildwood Cemetery Association incorporated on August 17, 1863, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, then one of the wealthiest lumber-shipping ports in the United States. The 340-acre site was laid out in the rural cemetery style established earlier by Mount Auburn in Cambridge and Laurel Hill in Philadelphia, with winding drives, planted slopes, and monuments scaled to a Victorian sense of mourning.
The cemetery received many of the lumber-boom industrialists who built Williamsport's Millionaire's Row along West Fourth Street. By the early 20th century, Wildwood had become Lycoming County's primary non-denominational burial ground. A crematorium was added in the early 20th century, and the site continues to operate as a private nonprofit cemetery under the management of the Wildwood Cemetery Company.
Among the more frequently noted burials is Nellie Tallman, a young girl whose portrait at the Thomas T. Taber Museum has been part of local lore for more than a century. The Pursel family vault, built in 1939 with iron-grated escape hatches reportedly intended to address premature-burial fears, is also documented in regional cemetery histories.
The cemetery remains accessible to the public during daylight hours for self-guided visits.
Sources
Wildwood Cemetery occupies enough acreage that local folklore organized itself spatially. The road dividing the grounds became, in mid-twentieth century retellings, a boundary between two distinct cemetery moods. The eastern half drew benign accounts, including reports of small figures on summer evenings sometimes characterized as fae in old-fashioned regional dialect. The western half drew the colder stories, including a recurring account of a wailing female figure on the upper slope.
Nellie Tallman's grave is the most frequently visited specific site within the cemetery for paranormal-curious visitors. Tallman, who died after a household fall in early childhood, is buried at Wildwood; her portrait at the Thomas T. Taber Museum in Williamsport has been the subject of separate local accounts of moved objects and changing position. Whether the portrait reports and the cemetery reports are related, or simply both attached to a young girl whose death was particularly mourned by the family, is unresolved.
The Pursel vault, constructed in 1939 with iron-grated escape hatches that could be opened from the inside, anchors a different layer of cemetery lore. The hatches reflect a then-fading Victorian fear of premature burial; their physical presence at Wildwood means the artifact of that fear remains visible to visitors today.
The accounts are local rather than national. Wildwood is not the subject of major paranormal television investigations, and the cemetery's owners do not promote or solicit paranormal visits. The grounds are open during posted hours for respectful self-guided visits.
Notable Entities
Walk or drive the 340-acre Victorian garden cemetery, founded in 1863. Notable burials include lumber-era industrialists and the small grave of Nellie Tallman, whose portrait at the Taber Museum is the subject of separate local lore.
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