Spider Gates is a beautiful, secluded, old Quaker cemetery in Leicester Massachusetts. Its actual name is Friends Cemetery, and is privately owned by the Worcester-Pleasant Street Friends Meeting. Graves date back as far as the 1700’s, with interments as recent as March 2000. Spider Gates is set back on its own private gated lane, Earle Street, about 800 feet from the main road. The wrought-iron gate has a spider web pattern--hence the name.
Spider Gates has a spooky reputation and there are many rumors about it. For one thing, it is said to be the Eighth Gate to Hell, or conversely, it has Eight Gates and if you go through all eight of them, viola! You are in Hell!
Other rumors are as follows: A teenage boy hung himself from a tree by the gate in the 1980’s. There is a strip of lawn where grass doesn't grow. Something roars in the woods. There is a central raised area twenty feet by twenty feet called “the Altar.” Satanists have permission to use it. There is a second cemetery nearby that can only be found once. There is a cave nearby where a girl was killed and mutilated. There is white stuff that oozes from the ground. It is haunted. Voices are heard and things rustle when there is no wind. The swamp is eerie. If you turn over the rocks in an area just outside the cemetery wall, you will find runes etched on them. It is said that a forked tree at Spider Gates is used for conjuring the devil. The idea is to place a large block of alabaster in the fork and recite the proper incantation.
I initially investigated Spider Gates with a friend on November 17, 2001, a crisp, clear autumn morning. First, the cemetery was hard to find and we did quite a bit of driving around, feeling puzzled. The road maps and topographical maps show Earle Street to be a public throughway, not a narrow gated private dirt road. It took a while to sort all this out. The cemetery is in the woods between the Worcester Airport and the Leicester Landfill. Earle Street is several hundred feet up Manville Street from the landfill entrance.
We parked near the landfill and proceeded to bushwhack our way through the woods. This was a mistake because it necessitated having to cross Kettle Brook, a rather vigorous small river. In any event, we did indeed find Spider Gates.
Spider Gates is a beautiful cemetery in a sylvan setting. It is a square cemetery on a small rise, surrounded by trees. Its walls are aligned to the cardinal compass points, the gate being in the north wall. We thoroughly explored the cemetery and the surrounding countryside for anything to substantiate its reputation as a magnet for unholy powers.
First, and this needs to be made clear, there is only ONE gate, not eight. There is just one entrance--the main one with the wrought-iron spider web pattern. Whether this truly is the Eight Gate to Hell, I can’t say. Certainly, I did not experience anything untoward upon entering the cemetery through it. .
The gates themselves are of interest. They are of an unusual design. Although the pattern of the wrought–iron gates is said to be a spider web pattern, it is in actually more of a sunburst pattern with radiating wavy rays. They have a distinct Art Deco look to them.
Immediately to the left upon entering the cemetery is a large oak tree. Attached to a fork about fifteen feet up is a short length of thick weathered twine that hangs down about a foot or so. I would speculate that this is the "hanging tree.” There is no official record of anyone ever hanging themselves here, however, and I would guess it is the twine that gave rise to the rumor. The twine does not seem bulky enough to facilitate a suicide and I doubt very much it would have been left up there if such an event did indeed happen. You would think the relatives or police would have removed such a gristly reminder.
In the middle on a gentle knoll, in a grove of mature white pines, is the raised area called “the Altar.” This is a square raised earthen area about twenty feet large, and maybe six inches high. At each corner is a granite post, accenting its square figure. There are no gravestones within. Although it is suggestively called “the Altar,” this is actually where the old Friends Meeting House used to stand. The flat square area is the footprint of the foundation.
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Some visitors report hearing a roaring from the woods. Others speak of leaves rustling when there is no wind, and still other claim to have heard voices. All I can say to this that the cemetery is literally under the landing approach for Worcester Airport, and certainly there is the occasional roar, but from above.
My investigation of the immediate grounds complete, I looked for the cave where the girl was said to have been killed. I did not find any obvious caves, but did find on the southern slope behind the cemetery a small overhang of rock. Also, not far away the old path of Earle Street crosses a once marshy area over a Shaker style laid-stone culvert. The culvert was conceivably large enough to stuff a body in, but again there is the problem that there is no official record of anyone being murdered in this area.
Further along, the old path of Earle Street runs through a swamp and up a steep hill to Mulberry Road. Interestingly, it is the base of the hill on Earle Street, and not the cemetery, that is the site where most of the reports of frightening encounters and “eerie” feelings have actually originated. Grown men have been known to run from this spot in terror and for no known or obvious reason. I, however, did not run from this spot in terror, and I can only hope this is not a derogatory reflection on my manhood.
We searched high and low for the second cemetery, the one that can only be found once. We did locate a cemetery close by at a Catholic home for orphaned boys. It was a sad melancholy little place. On the way home we drove by it on Mulberry Road, thus finding it for a second time. I would imagine this disqualifies it to be the one indicated in the rumor.
Is Spider Gates haunted? Is it a home of unholy powers, perhaps a gate of hell? My visit did not reveal anything to confirm this reputation. I found it to be a quiet, pleasant, woodland place. But perhaps the true test is a nighttime visit and it has been noted that supernatural events tend to find those who aren’t actually looking for them.
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