Behind The "Gates of Hell" Brunswick's Abandoned Cemetery

Two years ago I had the opportunity to explore the old abandoned Pinewood Cemetary. It's a creepy place with a history of paranormal activities and strange occurrences. The big iron gates at the entrance are affectionately known locally as "The Gates of Hell". Normally, tours are offered around Halloween and are meant to raise money for the preservation and restoration of the cemetery. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there wasn't a tour last year and so far no tours have been announced this year either.

The cemetery, officially named Forest Park Cemetary, but nobody calls it that, has been the subject of many hauntings and creepy stories. From the headless statues that bleed from the neck at night to the disappearing caskets in the mausoleum. The biggest legend is that the front gates are the Gate of Hell. People have experienced being pushed, scratched, and have heard weird sounds at the entrance.

Forest Park Cemetery was listed by Life magazine as one of the "Top Ten most haunted places in the United States."

There is even a legend of a gruesome and bizarre murder that happened when a couple on a date "parking" at the cemetery.

"An interesting story sighted in the Troy Record (Oct. 27, 1996, pp.E1,4) tells of a couple who "parked" in the cemetery in the 1940s or '50s. The man got out of the car to investigate a strange noise, and a little while later the woman heard scraping on the roof of the car. Police arrived at the scene and told the girl to get out of the car and run, and not to look back. Of course, she did, only to see that the scraping sound was coming from her companion's feet scraping against the roof of the car. He had been dangling from a tree above." ~Brunswick Historical Society

So here's a look behind "The Gates of Hell" from last year.