About This Location
The Sumner Knight Chapel within Woodland Cemetery in Keene, a historic burial ground with reported paranormal activity.
The Ghost Story
If you curse in front of the Sumner Knight Chapel, a ghost will wash your mouth out with soap. That is the local warning passed among residents of Keene, New Hampshire, about the stone chapel that sits within Woodland Cemetery on Beaver Street. The cemetery's Northeast Division contains the Sumner Knight and Family Memorial Chapel, a structure the City of Keene formally committed to maintaining "in the most perfect repair" through a joint resolution passed in 1931. The chapel was built as a memorial to the Knight family, and its granite walls and dark interior have become the focal point of one of the Monadnock region's most persistent hauntings.
The chapel harbors what investigators describe as an angry, malevolent presence that does not welcome visitors. Paranormal teams who have entered the structure report being chased away by an overwhelming sense of hostility -- a force that does not merely suggest they leave but actively pushes them toward the door. Audio recordings captured inside the chapel have picked up breathing noises, heavy knocks against the stone walls, and what sounds like someone moving in a space where no living person stands. Electronic voice phenomenon recordings have captured a female voice saying the name "Sarah," as well as voices asking for help.
Outside the chapel, the haunting takes a gentler form. The spirit of a young girl -- possibly the Sarah identified in the EVP recordings -- has been seen and heard throughout the cemetery grounds. Visitors describe a small figure peering out from behind trees and headstones, watching them with what appears to be curiosity rather than menace. She giggles. She follows people through the cemetery at a distance, darting behind monuments when they turn to look. Some witnesses describe her as approximately fourteen years old, and one paranormal investigation reportedly determined she may have died in a horse accident, though no historical records have confirmed this.
The contrast between the two spirits -- the hostile presence inside the chapel and the playful girl outside -- creates an unsettling dynamic. Visitors who come for the giggling girl may find themselves too close to the chapel's darker resident. The soap legend adds an almost parental dimension to the haunting, as though someone inside that stone building is still enforcing rules of decorum from beyond the grave.
Woodland Cemetery remains an active burial ground, and the Sumner Knight Chapel is accessible to visitors during daylight hours. The City of Keene maintains the grounds and the chapel itself, honoring the 1931 resolution. Paranormal researchers continue to investigate the site, drawn by the EVP evidence and the consistent reports from unrelated witnesses. Whether the soap-washing ghost and the angry chapel spirit are the same entity -- a stern guardian enforcing propriety in a place of rest -- or separate presences with different temperaments, no one has been able to determine. The only certainty is that Woodland Cemetery has more residents than the headstones account for.
