Ramsey Cemetery

Six miles north of Effingham and about four miles from Shumway, Ramsey Cemetery sits on a wooded crest at the end of 1230th Street in Douglas Township, Effingham County. A sign at the gate reads “RAMSEY CEMETERY, DOUGLAS TWP., FOR INFO CALL 342-6633” with smaller letters saying “No Work to be Done Before Contacting Sexton.” It is a working township burial ground with an active sexton.

The cemetery began in 1851 with the burial of 29-year-old Alexander Ramsey, first marked interment at the site. Three more Ramseys were buried within three years, and a private project became the community cemetery. The land belonged to the Hooten family; John Russell’s county history records that Corporal Henry A. Hooten of Company K, 89th Illinois Infantry Regiment is also buried here. The cemetery was probably formalised around 1863 during the Civil War. Why it carries the Ramsey name rather than Hooten remains unrecorded; the Ramseys may have had influence through a mill they owned.

A mourning chapel stood on the grounds from the 1920s until roughly the 1960s or 1980s, sheltering mourners during services. Accounts disagree on its removal: Lewis and Fisk say it was torn down in the 1960s for vandalism; the Ghost Research Society says disrepair began in the late 1950s and demolition came in the 1980s.

Nearby, off-road at a creek head, shallow sandstone rock shelters known locally as “the caves” have been carved with names and declarations of love for generations. The formations are thousands of years old. They lie outside the cemetery boundaries on private property.

The cemetery’s ghost stories centre on the mourning chapel. Lewis and Fisk recount that in the 1960s a troubled young man drove to the chapel, retrieved a shotgun from his car, and shot himself inside; they found no newspaper evidence but later received confirmation from a relative of the deceased. The Ghost Research Society’s file names the teen “Bartimus,” though it is the only source using any name. Other versions, unsupported by newspapers, say he hanged himself, either in the chapel or from a large tree outside.

Beyond the suicide legend, local reports include a werewolf in the caves and a hooded figure with red eyes seen at night. A caretaker of fifteen years reported finding a crucified possum pinned to a tree, plus occult-looking symbols and unusual offerings hanging from branches. Local investigators Rhonda and Cassie surveyed the site in 2004 with digital cameras, video, and night vision but found nothing.

All these legends trace to a single source: a thirty-word anonymous entry submitted to the Shadowlands Haunted Places Index between December 2001 and August 2002 describing “a werewolf and a man in a black cloak with red eyes” at an old cemetery. Every subsequent account descends from that submission, adding adjectives at each retelling. Folklorist Michael Kleen searched four and a half years for the caves and saw no werewolf; caretaker Paul Schmidt told the Effingham Daily News in 2008 he had never seen a ghost; two local investigators in 2004 found nothing. In June 2023 a Wikipedia editor removed the entire ghostlore section as “trimmed unsourced”.

Ramsey Cemetery remains in use. The Find a Grave index lists approximately 172 memorials, with the most recent death from January 2026. The rock shelters outside the cemetery bear generations of carvings; the gate tree is graffitied, and according to the sexton, occasional parties and occult symbols in the branches are what mark the place at night.