Mt Hope Cemetery in Bangor

I could not resist a trip to Mount Hope Cemetery while in Bangor. I have to say that I think this is the biggest cemetery I have ever been in!

Coming of age
On April, 23rd. 2009, Mount Hope Cemetery will officiall turn 175 years old, making it one of the nations oldest garden cemeteries. Established in 1834, concurrent with the incorporation that same year of Bangor, Maine, the cemetery's host city, the Mount Hope Cemetery Corporation, beginning with fify acres, owned roughly 264 acres of land by 1996.
America's second garden cemetery
Mount Hope, recognized as America's second garden cemetery, also managed the adjacent cemetery holding of the City of Bangor during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In total, Mount Hope owned or managed some 300 acres by 1995, property visited by the general public for educational and recreational purposes as well as providing crematory, mausoleum, and related cemetery services.
~taken from the Mt. Hope website

This memorial greets you as you enter.

I find the death angel kinda creepy, but in a fascinating way.

The ponds reflect the stones back, making there appear to be more graves than there are.

Full of slopes and walkways and ponds it’s more like a park than a cemetery.

Another memorial for our fallen features canons and a turret(?).

I would have loved to spend more time there but our stomachs were rumbling after our bad experience in New Hampshire so we only spent about 45 minutes.

I could not resist approaching this mausoleum/crypt. And maybe it was the time of day, or the quiet of the evening, but as I walked up closer I swore I heard sounds from within.

In fact, I quickly snapped this photo of the vines and lept (hey, you may have leaped, I lept!) away!

Still I cautiously crept onto the ‘roof’ to survey my surroundings.

Nearby, I could lie on a mound and take this shot where I think it looks like I’m arising from my grave.

I am not positive that this is the oldest portion of the cemetery but it appears that way to me. I have never seen graves mounded in this way before, and I think it lends to the creepiness factor.

While this cemetery was not the inspiration for Pet Semetary it was the location that Stephen King used to write much of the novel. And it appears in the movie - which btw King insisted be filmed in Maine. My middle son was named Gage after the boy in the movie. Nah, I'm not a fan at all. lol

Sidenote: Some you have mentioned that I seem to be sharing tons of cemeteries lately and it's true. But they are not a new found fascination, nope, not at all. I'm not sure exactly when the fascination began. I know my mom and i would do etchings when I was a girl and we would explore new ones we saw. Ad adult, it seems I might have gotten interested in them again when I was pregnant with my last child. We lived across the road from a cemetery and walked in it many times. I would look at stones for neat names for my upcoming baby. Didn't end up using any from there, but the fascination has stayed.

For my birthday in 2006, Dennis I went to as many Chicago cemeteries as we could. I had never explored them before and had a blast! There are several old posts on my old blog about previous trips, as well as the ones here. But you're seeing a lot of them all together because one of my vacation goals was to step into at least one cemetery in each state we went to. I only missed New Jersey.

Stephen King House

The first stop we made when we got Bangor, Maine was to drive by Stephen King’s house. I’m not a stalker so these shots were taken out my window of the van. Snap, snap, snap then we were gone like a flash.

Oh I would have loved to get out and get some close-ups of this magnificent fence and gates!

A little bat adorns each gate post.  By the way the house is even bigger than it looks!  I saw an aerial view and the house goes back a loooong way.

A little sun flare for effect. Can you see the spiders on each gate? I think, the room upstairs with the light on is Tabitha’s office. I could be wrong though. I know Stephen King’s uses the back part of the house. And he has an office elsewhere in town. It’s not hard to found out where all this is but I’m not going to post addresses here.

I was excited to find out that the Bangor Chamber of Commerce does tours of many of the places King has used as inspiration for his novels. Like the standpipe (It) and the cemetery (Pet Semetary), etc. But I was saddened to find they are only offered once a month June-August, and as you know we were there in May.

On our way back through Bangor a few days later I snapped a couple more photos. We had stopped at Beck’s Bookstore, where I purchase a t-shirt and license plate cover (My other car is Christine). We also bought a piece signed by the artist of the Green Mile. I already have a couple of King autographs.

This house sets on the other side of the King driveway and I had noticed they seemed to have the same fence. The guy at the bookstore told us that the King’s had purchased it a couple of years ago and have already spent over $3,000,000 renovating it. They hope to use it as an office. PS - The house two doors down from them is for sale - wouldn’t that be cool?!

I also found out while there that they are very active in their community and donate much money to children’s camps and such. Really great people!