The Redcoat Skeleton
04/08/25 • 15 min
The Grim is opening the gate and entering Bennington Centre Cemetery located in Bennington Vermont. Like bones catching the last light after sundown, the white marble gravestones gleam with an otherworldly brightness. Founded in 1762 beside Vermont's Old First Church, this extraordinary burial ground transcends its purpose to become something far more profound – a cathedral of carved mortality where American history, art, and memory converge in breathtaking ways.
What separates Bennington from other historic cemeteries is the remarkable collection of funerary artistry etched into its stones. Master carvers like Zerubbabel Collins, Ebenezer Soule, and Josiah Manning left behind over 40 distinct works featuring winged skulls, soul effigies, and haunting faces that stare across centuries. These weren't mere markers but sermons in stone, created by artisans whose family dynasties spanned generations and whose chisels shaped American memorial traditions.
The cemetery breathes with revolutionary significance. Just 15 years after its founding, the Battle of Bennington saw local militias led by General John Stark defeat British forces in a pivotal moment that weakened Burgoyne's campaign and helped secure American victory at Saratoga. Today, 75 soldiers from that conflict – American, British, and Hessian – share the same quiet ground, their divisions dissolved by death's democracy.
Perhaps most poignant is the modest slab marking Robert Frost's final resting place, bearing his immortal epitaph: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world." The celebrated poet, who buried his wife and four children and whose deceptively simple verse concealed profound meditations on isolation and mortality, found his perfect resting place among these colonial dead and carved masterpieces. Nearby lies David Redding, a loyalist spy whose skeleton wandered nearly 200 years before finally receiving proper burial in 1976, a reminder that some stories refuse easy conclusions.
Subscribe now to join us on our next journey through fascinating and forgotten graveyards or cemeteries, where history isn't just remembered – it's revealed.
Support The Grim by buying a cup of our next Grave Grind!
https://buymeacoffee.com/kristinlopes
Find All of The Grim's Social Links At:
https://linktr.ee/kristinlopes
The Grim is opening the gate and entering Bennington Centre Cemetery located in Bennington Vermont. Like bones catching the last light after sundown, the white marble gravestones gleam with an otherworldly brightness. Founded in 1762 beside Vermont's Old First Church, this extraordinary burial ground transcends its purpose to become something far more profound – a cathedral of carved mortality where American history, art, and memory converge in breathtaking ways.
What separates Bennington from other historic cemeteries is the remarkable collection of funerary artistry etched into its stones. Master carvers like Zerubbabel Collins, Ebenezer Soule, and Josiah Manning left behind over 40 distinct works featuring winged skulls, soul effigies, and haunting faces that stare across centuries. These weren't mere markers but sermons in stone, created by artisans whose family dynasties spanned generations and whose chisels shaped American memorial traditions.
The cemetery breathes with revolutionary significance. Just 15 years after its founding, the Battle of Bennington saw local militias led by General John Stark defeat British forces in a pivotal moment that weakened Burgoyne's campaign and helped secure American victory at Saratoga. Today, 75 soldiers from that conflict – American, British, and Hessian – share the same quiet ground, their divisions dissolved by death's democracy.
Perhaps most poignant is the modest slab marking Robert Frost's final resting place, bearing his immortal epitaph: "I had a lover's quarrel with the world." The celebrated poet, who buried his wife and four children and whose deceptively simple verse concealed profound meditations on isolation and mortality, found his perfect resting place among these colonial dead and carved masterpieces. Nearby lies David Redding, a loyalist spy whose skeleton wandered nearly 200 years before finally receiving proper burial in 1976, a reminder that some stories refuse easy conclusions.
Subscribe now to join us on our next journey through fascinating and forgotten graveyards or cemeteries, where history isn't just remembered – it's revealed.
Support The Grim by buying a cup of our next Grave Grind!
https://buymeacoffee.com/kristinlopes
Find All of The Grim's Social Links At:
https://linktr.ee/kristinlopes
Previous Episode
Ghosts in the Asylum
The Grim is opening the gate and entering Medfield State Hospital Cemetery located in Medfield Massachusetts. Revealing a haunting landscape where 841 former psychiatric patients lie buried beneath small numbered markers – their identities erased even in death. What began as the "Medfield Insane Asylum" in 1892 evolved into a sprawling mental health facility that operated for over a century before finally closing its doors in 2003, leaving behind a legacy of isolation, mistreatment, and forgotten lives.
Beyond its troubling history as a psychiatric institution, many visitors recognize these grounds from popular films like Shutter Island, Knives Out, and X-Men: New Mutants. Yet few realize they're walking across the same soil where patients lived, suffered, and died – their stories silenced by stigma and institutional neglect. When the devastating Spanish Flu swept through in 1918, claiming 55 patients and 5 staff members, the hospital established its own cemetery rather than continue burying their dead in the town's Vine Lake Cemetery.
For decades, these graves remained anonymous, marked only by cold metal numbers driven into the earth. It wasn't until a determined Boy Scout from Troop 89 undertook the painstaking work of matching numbers to names that these forgotten souls began to reclaim their identities. Today, a memorial stone stands at the entrance with the poignant inscription: "Remember those buried at Medfield State Hospital, for they too have lived, loved and laughed."
As the only abandoned psychiatric hospital in America where visitors can freely roam the grounds, Medfield offers a unique window into our troubled approach to mental health care. Film crews report unexplained phenomena, with one director noting "literally every single person on my crew had weird things happen." Whether you're drawn by historical curiosity, cinematic connections, or paranormal possibilities, this Massachusetts landmark invites reflection on how we remember – or fail to remember – those society once chose to forget. Listen as we dig deep into the stories beneath our feet and restore dignity to those who were numbered rather than named.
Support The Grim by buying a cup of our next Grave Grind!
https://buymeacoffee.com/kristinlopes
Find All of The Grim's Social Links At:
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Next Episode
The Eternal Tetsuya
The Grim is opening the gate deep in the forested mountains of Wakayama Prefecture lies a sacred realm suspended between worlds. Entering Okunoin Cemetery located at Mount Koya isn't merely Japan's most hallowed burial ground—it's a living testament to 1,200 years of unbroken spiritual devotion where the boundary between life and death seems remarkably thin.
The journey begins where modern Japan recedes. After a bullet train and local railway, visitors ascend 800 meters by funicular into what feels like another dimension. Crossing the First Bridge marks your departure from the realm of the living as you enter a two-kilometer path winding beneath towering cedars past over 200,000 graves and memorials.
What makes Okunoin transcendent isn't just its scale but its remarkable intersection of history and belief. Here lies Kukai (Kobo Daishi), the founder of Shingon Buddhism who never "died" but entered eternal meditation in 835 CE. Two lanterns have reportedly burned without pause for 900 years in the Torodo (Hall of Lanterns) before his mausoleum, where monks still bring meals twice daily.
The cemetery reads like a physical timeline of Japanese history. Feudal rivals Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin face each other in eternal standoff. The three great unifiers—Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu—rest among poets like Matsuo Basho. Five-ringed stone towers represent Buddhist cosmology, while Jizō statues wearing red bibs watch over departed children.
Strangely, modernity has crept into this ancient sanctuary. Corporate memorials stand alongside monuments to termites and even a replica Saturn V rocket. Local legends add another layer of mysticism—venomous snakes sealed by Kukai, a well that predicts your death if your reflection is absent, and stone steps that promise rebirth if climbed without falling.
Have you ever wandered among the dead and felt more alive? Subscribe to join us next time as we open another gate on the Grimm and explore history's most fascinating burial grounds.
Support The Grim by buying a cup of our next Grave Grind!
https://buymeacoffee.com/kristinlopes
Find All of The Grim's Social Links At:
https://linktr.ee/kristinlopes
The Grim: A Spine-Chilling Podcast Exploring Haunted Cemeteries and Graveyard Tales - The Redcoat Skeleton
Transcript
Grim . Morning and welcome to the Grimm . I'm your host , kristen . On today's episode we'll be opening the gate and entering Bennington Center Cemetery , located in Bennington , vermont . So grab your favorite mug , cozy up and let's take a dig into history . The weather is shifting , spring has arrived , softening the last brittle edges of winter , and the grim is nearing the end of
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