Following is a true ghost story. All photos were taken by myself at the New Bethel Cemetery, unless otherwise noted.
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My first visit to Kempton came in the summertime, just a few years ago. A torrential rain began the moment I crossed the town-line and stopped the moment I left. I had come in search of the New Bethel Church cemetery, home of the gravesite of Matthias Shambacher. Doubling back, I made a second pass through the tiny town. This time, instead of rain, I was tracked by an ominous pick-up truck. Appearing out of nowhere from a private dirt road at the end of a dead end street, the pick-up took up position behind my car and escorted me right out of Kempton. When I crossed the town-line, the truck made a quick U-turn, returning to wherever it was that it came from. Apparently, the residents of Kempton don’t seem to look too kindly on outsiders.
The pick-up kept me out of the town until the following autumn. It would have kept me out for good, had it not been for the story I heard by a campfire one summer night, many years before. The man who told me this story is an upright and honest citizen, not prone to fanciful exaggerations or fabricated tales. He is also a brilliant man with a natural talent for reason unlike anyone I’ve met. He’s a mathematician, and a computer programmer, a man committed entirely to the most rational language in the universe. Beyond that, most of what he told me I’ve heard repeated by others who have shared eerily similar experiences at New Bethel Cemetery.
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The New Bethel Church cemetery is a beautiful place. Covering a couple of acres in the Pennsylvania countryside, its graves date back more than a century and a half. The town itself hasn’t grown appreciably since the day the first body was put to rest in that mysterious ground. In a world where old cemeteries are rapidly running out of room, more than half of this tiny burial ground still lays in wait. The landscape boasts old groves of native trees offset by small, family owned farms. In the distance, low rolling hills mark the ends of the horizon. At first glance, it’s idyllic.
It was this beauty that brought my friend to the mountainside two weekends a month for a survivalist-training camp. After a couple years of camping in the woods he and his campmates had seen their fair share of strange things: strange lights in the woods; screams in the middle of the night; and plenty of odd characters moving in the shadows. Before long though, any fear they once felt was usurped by a confidence grown by their experience in the woods. So one night after a few drinks, when someone suggested they take the short drive to the base of the mountain to the ‘haunted’ cemetery where the old killer Matthias Shambacher was buried, no one so much as flinched.
It was 10:30 at night when the five young men pulled into the small parking lot of the New Bethel Church. They felt their way around the building, navigating through the darkness towards the cemetery hill. Only one of them knew where to find the unmarked grave of Matthias Shambacher. Making their way to the first row of graves in the oldest part of the cemetery, he found the gap between headstones where Matthias was buried.
The men were comfortable in the cemetery, headstrong, fearless and drunk. Inebriated confidence is a dangerous thing, especially when mixed with late-adolescent machismo. The men, fearless and ignorant, began to try their luck. One of them stepped up and stomped on the grave, shouting profanities at the dead man. Then the one-ups-man-ship began. Someone spat on the ground, laughing and grinding his heel through the dirt and grass. In a few minutes four of the five, (my friend being the only one abstaining) stood spitting, stomping, cursing and taunting the long-dead killer. The defilement escalated to the point of ultimate disrespect, urinating on Matthias Shambacher’s restless, buried corpse.
Now from other stories I’ve heard, this cemetery gives even seasoned ghost hunters a very bad feeling. I’ve been told 5 separate stories, from 5 separate people on 5 separate trips to New Bethel that there’s something about the cemetery that screams “GET OUT OF HERE NOW” to unwanted visitors. It’s the strangest thing, but everyone describes the same feeling. It’s as if someone, or something, doesn’t want them there. Whatever it is, it fills them with an intense fear, forcing them to leave.
When the fear hit my friend and his buddies shortly after the mass desecration of Matthias Shambacher’s grave, it was far worse than anything that any of them had felt before at Hawk Mountain. Their fearless bravado evaporated in an instant. Although no one could define it, something had changed. One moment they felt nothing but their own egos and the next, they felt nothing but fear. Not a word was spoken between them, but there was no question about the message they were receiving. It was restless, angry and powerful. It spoke as clearly as the voice of God spoke to Adam:
GET OUT OF HERE NOW
The fear grew by the second, quickly subsuming their intoxication and driving their quickened footsteps towards the car. There was electricity in the air as they anxiously piled in. Each pore of each of their bodies felt as if invaded by a fine electric charge. The hair on their arms and legs stood on end and a presence other than themselves began to grow between them.
It was at this moment that they turned the key and……… nothing. The car they drove to the cemetery in, the car that they drove to town in, to the hardware store, to the Jersey Shore, to the city, all without any problem at all, was suddenly, inexplicably, dead. Suddenly the realization dawned that they were in the middle of nowhere, miles from camp, sitting in a broken down car, in the dead of the night, trapped in a cemetery more terrifying than anywhere any of them had ever been before. What they didn’t know was that all this was just the beginning.
Frantically, the driver tried the key again. The car sat dead. If they were going to get out of there, they were going to have to do it on their own. Doing his best to force the demons out of his head, the driver enlisted himself and a couple of the others to get out and take a look under the hood. Nothing had actually happened, they tried to tell themselves. It was weird, there was a bad feeling and it was an odd coincidence with the car being dead, but when it was all boiled down, nothing had really happened. No one was hurt physically or in any clear danger. They hadn’t seen or even heard anything unusual. With these thoughts swirling through their minds, they ignored the white-hot energy that pulsed through their bodies like electric fear, and stepped out into the open air.
They tried for 15 minutes to get the car going. Besides the fact that it wouldn’t start, they couldn’t find anything obviously wrong. Their attempts to suppress the fear were failing miserably. (You can try to rationalize with your emotions all you want, but you can’t expect it to do a bit of good.) The feeling of a presence grew heavier with each passing minute and with each futile turn of the ignition. The electric sensation pounded through them like an adrenaline rush that refused to fade. Then out of nowhere and for no reason at all, the car started. Unnerving in itself, they were still partially relieved at the seeming stroke of good fortune. As quickly as they could, they piled back in and pulled into the darkened country road. No sooner had they driven out of the Church driveway than a small animal ran in their path and under their wheel. They thought it was a chipmunk, but what kind of chipmunk was awake in the middle of the night?
Either way it didn’t matter. Although still frightened, there was a sense of relief in being on the road. It was only a few miles back to the familiar safety of the camp. But only a few hundred yards later, a squirrel bolted out into the road. It was too late for them to stop. Less than a mile driven and two animals were dead. The same insidious electric presence from the cemetery began to fill the car. Whatever sense of control they had gained was quickly losing ground to a fear that grew as oppressive as before. A rabbit darted out, running at full speed, as if being chased – hit and killed. Less than a minute later a raccoon appeared – hit dead. The presence was as strong as ever… a possum bounded out from the woods into the path of the car…
Against his better instincts, but seeing little alternative, the driver slowed to an agonizing crawl as animals appeared in the road with bizarre frequency. Animals were nearly pouring out of the woods and onto the road. They swerved to miss them as the ran into the path of their car. Whatever room remained in anyone’s mind to temper the night’s events with rationality had been lost. No doubt remained that whatever was going on was very real. Their fear was real, the presence they felt was real, the dead animals were real and the above all, whatever was controlling the events was real. The only thing they knew for sure was that whatever it was that was pulling the strings had an enormous power to create and manipulate fear in the living. Especially terrifying was the ever-more-likely prospect that the entity responsible was the infuriated spirit of a long-dead backwoods serial killer.
Except for the headlights and for the animals in their path, the road was pitch black and dead empty. The car made it past the last of the farms and onto the mountainside road that led back to camp. Both sides of the winding road were thick with forest. In the distance, their headlights caught glimpses of something up ahead. Now, I swear to God that this story is true. It was recounted to me by a trusted friend and one of the five men who rode that night in this car. Up ahead on that darkened country road, was Matthias Shambacher’s old Inn, the Inn, that saw the Gerhard massacre, the Shambacher murders and even the brutal murder of the priest who lived there after Matthias Shambacher had died.
What they saw, ever more clearly as they approached the Shambacher Inn in the middle of the night, was an ethereal white robed figure wearing a long, grey beard. He stood by the side of the narrow highway at the entrance to the old Inn. In his hand, he held a scythe, or some similar long handled farm instrument as he stood, staring down the car. Seeing the unearthly figure standing ominously at the side of the road, tore away the last bits of self-control the five men desperately clung to. Breaking into a panic, the driver pressed the gas to the floor, passing the terrifying figure with as much speed as the car would allow. They accelerated, 25, 30, 35, 40, until out of the darkness and into the road appeared a deer. By the time the driver hit the brakes they had already hit it, splitting its body, shattering its bone and sending its broken corpse careening back into the darkness. Losing control of the car the driver swerved and skidded, struggling to regain traction and direction. Blood splattered across the hood and stained the windshield. Panic defeated sense as the driver regained control and they drove as fast as the car would carry them back to camp. Come more animals, ethereal figures or even their own death, they didn’t care.
In the end, they made it to their camp, physically unharmed. The car was badly damaged with bits of hair and flesh embedded in the broken grill and headlights. The electric presence vacated their space and their fear began to fade. Emotionally and mentally they suffered far more damage, having learned a valuable lesson about unsettling the dead.
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My friend’s story is not unique. I have since learned that tales of Matthias Shambacher and the strange power that his spirit seems to hold are fairly common in that corner of Berks County. The ominous electric presence, the feeling of being watched and even the bearded white figure holding a long-handled farm instrument are all common to ghost stories from Kempton, PA. A quick Internet search will uncover several similar stories.
As terrifying as the stories are, I found myself seeking out the New Bethel cemetery last autumn. During my visit, I didn’t dare disrespect the dead and was careful to leave before sunset. What I found was a strange, beautiful and utterly peaceful cemetery in the Pennsylvania countryside. It was an overwhelmingly calm and quiet day… except for two small details.
The cemetery sits on a hillside. At the top of the hill is a grove of trees. During my visit, hundreds of crows (I believe a group of crows is called a murder) were roosting in those trees. Now I know that crows tend to congregate in groups like this from time to time, but there and then? Normal crow behavior or not, nothing offsets the nerves a bit like a noisy murder of crows. But I soon got used to them and enjoyed the late autumn afternoon in the idyllic countryside. Eventually I got back into the car and started on the trip home. Having left at sunset the road darkened quickly. I recalled my friend’s story and imagined what it must have been like to be in that car. At that moment a spike of energy ran up my spine. It wasn’t a chill; it was more like a jolt of electricity running up my back and to the base of my skull. Startled, something told me to look out the window. Glancing out the passenger side window, I saw a fresh roadside memorial placed in honor to someone killed on that spot. Surrounded by wreaths, written messages and fresh flowers a handmade cross was driven into the ground at the side of the narrow, tree-lined road. At its base, among flowers, notes and colorful adornments was a dead cat. It couldn’t have been more than a few hours old.
The jolt subsided as soon as I passed the memorial. A few hundred yards later I pulled onto the highway and pointed the car back towards the city. It wasn’t much, really just an odd little thing you could easily ignore or write off as coincidence… but when dealing with Kempton, PA, Hawk Mountain and Matthias Shambacher you can never be certain.
