Gunntown Cemetery

Gunntown Cemetery in Naugatuck, CT was declared officially haunted by Ed and Lorraine Warren and is known for children's laughter heard from empty fields, a man with a lantern leading a horse, and physical encounters where visitors report being scratched and pushed. The cemetery dates to 1790 and holds Revolutionary War veterans from the Loyalist Gunn family compound.

"We're all alone." That's what the voice recorder picked up. A little girl, clear as day, in a cemetery where no children were present. The woman who captured it, a visitor named Cathy, has been to Gunntown Cemetery more than fifty times. She's been scratched, pushed, and grabbed. She keeps going back.

Gunntown sits in the Millville section of Naugatuck, a small plot enclosed by stone walls and an iron gate, surrounded by woods. It opened in 1790 as a burial ground for the families who settled this stretch of the Naugatuck Valley. Revolutionary War veterans are buried here. So are War of 1812 and Civil War soldiers. The cemetery takes its name from the Gunn family, whose patriarch Nathaniel arrived in 1733 and built an 800-acre compound with a sawmill, blacksmith shop, general store, and distillery.

The Gunns were Loyalists during the Revolution. Bad choice of neighbors. In the spring of 1780, a gang of Tory thieves kidnapped sixteen-year-old Chauncey Judd from nearby Bethany and dragged him to the Gunn family barn. One of the gang, Daniel Graham, decided Judd was a liability and moved to shoot him, tie stones to his body, and dump him in Long Meadow Brook. Two young cousins in the gang, Henry and David Wooster, who had grown up with Judd, threw themselves in front of Graham's gun. The boy survived. Israel P. Warren documented the whole episode in an 1864 book, and the site earned a place on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.

But people don't drive to Naugatuck for the history. They come because of what happens after dark.

The most common report is children laughing. Visitors hear it from the field beyond the back wall, faint at first, then creeping closer until it sounds like the laughter is inside the cemetery walls. A visitor named Dee heard it clearly and noted there were no children anywhere in sight. Local accounts point to a family with a child buried in the back right corner, though nobody agrees on which grave.

A man with a lantern appears, leading a horse through the headstones. A little boy plays near the back wall. A black dog materializes between the graves and vanishes. A woman named Lindsay's sister brought a voice recorder and captured distinct carousel music. No carousel exists within miles.

Ed and Lorraine Warren, the demonologists behind the Amityville and Annabelle cases, investigated Gunntown and declared it officially haunted. Lorraine offered a specific warning: the dark energy at Gunntown comes not from the dead buried beneath the headstones, but from those who visit the cemetery for dark purposes.

The physical encounters are what set this cemetery apart. Visitors don't just see things here. They get touched. A parent identified only as BK brought their daughter for a nighttime visit. When the daughter came out, she had scratches running down her back that weren't there when she went in. A fifteen-year-old named Eric said he was kicked after his friend challenged the spirits out loud. He claims he was knocked flat. Another visitor, Amanda, felt a gentle touch while watching green glowing eyes in the darkness.

The skeptical explanations are reasonable. Stone walls create an echo chamber that amplifies insect sounds. A house sits behind the cemetery with actual children. Dust and moisture on camera lenses produce orbs. But the scratches, the consistent reports of children's laughter from dozens of unrelated visitors over decades, the carousel music on tape. Those are harder to dismiss.

Naugatuck police patrol Gunntown regularly and will arrest trespassers after dark. The cemetery's reputation has brought vandalism and visitors who treat graves like props. If you go, go during daylight and stay respectful. The Gunn family and the soldiers buried here didn't volunteer for this.

What makes Gunntown compelling is how specific the accounts are. It's not "I felt something weird." It's a man with a lantern leading a horse. It's carousel music where no carousel exists. It's a little girl on a voice recorder saying "we're all alone" to a woman who has visited fifty times and still can't stop coming back.