Vale Cemetery

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The largest cemetery in Schenectady, Vale Cemetery opened in 1857 and is said to be a spooky place, indeed. Witnesses say some of the statuary cries out at night or bleeds from the eyes or the tops of their heads. Black and white ghostly figures are alleged to wander through the gravesites and sit in trees, and strange lights have been seen and singing has been heard within the old church on the grounds.

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Geographic Information

Address:
907 State St.
Schenectady, NY
United States

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GPS:
42.80810712129048, -73.92827296265756
County:
Schenectady County, New York
Nearest Towns:
Schenectady, NY (0.7 mi.)
Scotia, NY (2.2 mi.)
Rotterdam, NY (2.6 mi.)
Niskayuna, NY (4.6 mi.)
East Glenville, NY (6.0 mi.)
Colonie, NY (7.9 mi.)
Westmere, NY (8.6 mi.)
Altamont, NY (9.2 mi.)
McKownville, NY (9.5 mi.)
Country Knolls, NY (9.7 mi.)
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Comments (24)

  1. Yes, this place is definitely very creepy! I used to hang out here with friends as a teenager. One time we were walking through and we all saw individual headstones with our last names on them……To my knowledge, none of my relatives are buried here, none of my friends’ relatives are buried here and my last name is not very common. We walked through another time but couldn’t find those same headstones again. Weird!

    • Your comment gave me goosebumps because I had almost this exact same experience. There was a headstone tipped over so my friend and I lifted it and it had my name on it! It must have been a family plot because it was just the first name and my first name isn’t that common (Annie)

  2. I use to go there all the time.. I went with my sister and her ex .bf once at night and he was messing around once at night”Hell’s gates”my sister and I were sitting in what they call “the witch’s circle” I ended up seeing a figure of Chris standing there and I was like 11 at the time but I asked my sister if she seen it and she said “no” So I was freaking out because I didn’t know what it was and I never will.. But, I Do know he was into satanism. Another story is my mother was being abused by my dad and she went to lay with Maggie in the dead of winter and not even a drop of snow landed on her and she was warm when she woke up.

  3. I lived on Elmer ave as a child me and all my friends used to hang out in vale I used to cut through vale to get to my house went to Central Park middle played sports in winter it got dark and I was tired against my judgement walked in by myself and it was now dark half way through didn’t want to leave and walk long way home sucked it up and continued was about 100 ft from hole in fence I knew this hole by heart it was calm then wind started howling I was scared to death . Something was preventing me from getting out through the fence shadow play all around me started praying got out finally I have so many stories at night I could see vale from my room used to see a women with flowing long white gown almost every night .i could see her only once she looked my way was so scared when she made eye contact. I didn’t sleep for a long time after she saw me .i stopped looking out my window at night. Another story my aunt lived on the back side of vale we used to watch from her yard a group of people in cloaks with hoods we were kids at the time .i was dared to hop fence I snuck up on them only to be chased barely made it over French grabed my leg I was terrified my cousins were yelling at them from safety on other side of French I was maybe 10-11 found out years later they were devil worshipers.old part of vale where there used to be gargoyle statues with red eyes and some graves with coffins up out of ground we would explore crazy orbs shadows and man in cloak this time he wasn’t human he turned around red eyes glowing we took off running.the boy that was with us wanted to follow this thing my girlfriend Charlene and I kept running we lost him then heard screaming he was covered with bees screaming help we had to run and get him he never went back and a few months later he moved and was killed riding his bike

      • My ex father grew up there in the early 1900’s the are was overwhelmed w suicides n murder of lovers qurels. His father murders his mother during the depression n through her in the lake. He talked about many people jumped off of some bridge during the depression so at that time cops stopped investigations if the body was found in the lake. He talked about the grave robbing because people were so poor they dug up bodies to take jewelery off of the deceased they could sell for money guess it was a lucrative business. He talked about a place called skid row where the poorest of poor lived n a place called boot Hill used by people who killed someone would bury the person they murdered. Lots of Women for the most part were treated like possessions and punching bags down on skid row. Most of the people in the whole of the town were Irishmen who loved to get drunk daily. There were people who practiced witch craft they brought from England. So you see there was a lot of sadness, drunken brawls, cheating n sexual activities that led to husband’s n boyfriend’s wives to murder their significant other, curses n suicides in the area for decades possibly centuries. My ex father in law would be 94 if he was still a live Robert Chambers.

  6. Well, here’s what happened to us. My ex and I used to eat at the Chinese restaurant next to Vale and decided to take a walk in one sunny afternoon. We were about twenty-five yards into the park when we looked up and saw a young couple holding hands – or rather, part of young couple as they weren’t “all there” so to speak. They were at the top of a small rise in the path and as we reached the top they literally vanished. Just gone. We heard this weird giggling and turned tail and ran lol – no small feat as we were no spring chickens ourselves. We sat on the picnic table just outside the gate, trying to figure out what had just happened. All of a sudden, a police car sped past us at top speed, through the entrance to the path, and disappeared. We spent about another five minutes trying to decide if the car was real and if so how did it fit down the narrow path? And where did it go? We were officially freaked out by then and left but I’ve always wondered if the police do drive through Vale. Seems impossible but then I’ve never gotten far enough in to investigate lol. There is definitely an interesting energy in there though. Very pretty too.

  7. I bike through Vale at all hours of the day and night and the scariest thing i have seen in Vale is some homeless woman taking a crap in the in weeds.

  8. I have lived here all of my life i use to cut through the cemetary to get from brandywine ave to nott st as a teenager i saw some crazy things here there are two cemetaries here on brandywine ave side once you actually get into vale cemetary the wind picks up on the calmest day i was playing hide in seek there with some of my friends it started to get dark we were looking at some of the statues and they seem to change a little so we ran it felt like someone was following us when we turned and looked behind us no one was there.there is a statue that has blood flowing down it’s eyes you can trip over nothing here just walking through then when you get by hells gates it is a wooded area and it feels like someone is constantly watching you and there is a pond there you hear things when your in the cemetary it’s most creepier at night.

  10. OK I have lived in Schenectady my whole like and I am 27, I have gone to vale as a kid and played man hunt a large group version of hid and go seek but with walkie talkies. And not a single stinking time have I ever once heard of see something supernatural. I roam around there still today with my wife and play Pokemon go and the closest I get to supernatural is I might find a ghastly or haunter on Pokémon go lol. So whatever y’all r smoking saying there are supernatural events in vale you r either drugged out liars or can’t tell the sound of an animal. Maybe I will find big foot or nessy there who knows haha

    • @ Frost – In general, people who do not believe in ghosts/spirits at all tend to not see them or feel them around them. Believers of them or those that don’t think about it one way or the other are the people most likely to experience them. Also, kids are more prone to believing than adults. I’ve had a spirit who has followed me around for 50 years – I believe it to be my gramps who died in our home when I was 11 (we were very close), spirit has showed itself in some manner in every place I have moved into since leaving home. My husband who is a non-believer, comes up with crazy reasons for a few happenings. One house we moved into, we heard a crash in middle of the night and got up to investigate – there was a smashed glass mixing bowl on the kitchen floor. The cabinet door was closed, we opened it,rest of bowls were still there, this bowl smashed on floor had been in the middle of the stack of 5 mixing bowls – other 4 still sitting in cab in order. His answer to it, a mouse LOL like a mouse can lift a bowl out of a stack, throw it on floor, put rest of bowls back and close door again……house we live in now, we were in our bedroom unpacking stuff one evening and our 2 labs were on our bed, we heard a loud crash in room across hallway and I went into bedroom there and one of the dresser drawers had been pulled out of dresser and dropped about 6-8 inches out from dresser on floor – hubby said must have been the dogs (who were sleeping on our bed, behind us when it happened. Always an incident like that, get my attention, never violent to me, just making noise, thought the smashed bowl was annoying to clean up…..I do see black shadows floating sometimes at night in this house. Our neighbors also see black orbs flying in their house, haunted area here………NON-believers have been known to convert at times when they run across a ghost who is angry and will make themselves known regardless if the person believes or not…….so you never know, you’re young, you might become a believer some day – Never say Never !!!

  12. I was practicing my photography near there, and I just so happened to catch some of the statues. A few hours later, I went back through my images, so I could log the location and time the photographs were taken (I was trying to photograph the historic buildings of the city); in the hopes I will one day be able to create a database that people could use for research. When I went back through my memory card, all the pictures that contained a statue from Vale cemetery were gone. I still have no explanation for what happened, as I only delete pictures from my home computer, and the camera in question had never left my possession. And before you start thinking, the camera was brand new, I had had it less then a 6 months, and never had any issues with it before this.

    • Cole – have you gone back and tried to photograph them again and see what happens??? I’d be interested to know on that one

  13. So, Not as much an experience as it is a relation of sort? My Grandfather Earl, was the caretaker and lived in the house on the property, in the cemetery. My mother and her 2 sisters and brother, would walk home from school and when they would get to the gates, they’d be left to walk the rest of the way home. No friends coming over for dinner much I guess. She would tell me about grave robbers and how one particular person was dug up more than once, for “whatever reason I don’t know” she would say. Obviously, a dinner table talking point that would be considered unusual, but my Grandfather was the guy who was stuck re burying the person. I suppose the “why” of it all faded with the growing pain in the rear it was every year. As for haunted, she never mentioned any instance, ever, that seemed scary, haunted or unexplained. And believe me, she would’ve loved to have had something like that to tell. This is not to say that I’m not a believer, because I absolutely know we are more than the flesh, so certainly experiences are to be had in Vale. Maybe she was just too close to it, or too young to see it. She would talk about playing among the stones while her father worked, or sleigh riding a hill somewhere in there that was very popular. But aside from that, it was in her word, “neat”. I still have all of her fathers keys to all of the gates, that she left to me before she crossed the bridge of light. She was awesome, you guys would’ve liked her.

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