Witchcraft, stolen gold and a serial killer all color Soop's history
Of all the cemeteries in Wayne County, more bizarre stories circulate around Soop Cemetery, also known as Pleasantview Cemetery, than anywhere else.
The Internet is full of Michigan ghost hunting sites, and Soop Cemetery is not only mentioned in nearly every one, it has photos and sound bytes of whatever goes bump in the night out on Old Denton Road.
To make any sense of how its reputation got started, we have to look at the history of Soop Cemetery.
Van Buren Township was formed by an act of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Michigan in 1835.
The Erie Canal was completed in the 1820s, paving the way for Westward migration from points in the northeast.
When Abraham Soop arrived here in 1832 from Seneca, NY, there were few settlers in the area.
People then chronicled Native Americans coming to the doors, scaring many of the European and northeastern immigrants, who had only heard stories of them, and generally negative stories.
Soop was the only settler to be granted one section of square mile of government land.
Together with Amariah Rawson and David Dalrymple, who lived on adjacent properties, the three men created Soop Cemetery.
Rawson would later have the village of Rawsonville- a Michigan historical marker marks the site of the town where the McDonald's restaurant on Rawsonville Road now stands- but at the time Soop arrived, the village was known as Snow's Landing.
To show how old - for a Michigan cemetery - Soop is, Rawson's father, Abner, a revolutionary War soldier is buried there.
A mix of transplanted city people, moved to what was then still little more than accessible frontier, lonely, cold winters and separation from one's families no doubt started letting imaginations run wild even 140 years ago.
One of the most prevalent rumors is that a witch who practiced black magic is buried there and to this days enjoying scaring the daylights out of the living.
The "witch," Elizabeth Soop, is indeed buried there. As far as her predisposition for witchcraft is concerned, no one really knows how that rumor got started. But it has persisted for generations.
The rumor is the tombstone with the two hands pointing down is Elizabeth's.
However, the Elizabeth in question is buried next to Frederick Soop and there are two Elizabeth Soops buried there.
Hands held together in prayer is not a symbol of witchcraft and neither of the Elizabeth Soops buried there have the symbol on their graves.
Diane Wilson, the author of Water Under the Bridge: A History of Van Buren Township does tell the story of One Isaac Bumpus.
Bumpsus was buried in Soop Cemetery in 1921, and a rumor nearly a century old then has persisted that he was the last man to see a mysterious box brimming with gold coins.
The box has never been found to this day.
Bumpus supposedly went to the back 40 acres with a newly hired hand.
The farm worker buried a strong box and died a short time later.
Though no one remembers for sure, a detective from New York came to Van Buren Township investigating the robbery of a strong box full of gold coins.
The detective followed the man's trail all the way to Rawsonville from New York.
There was little doubt the missing strong box was the one buried by the hired hand and finding the money was a favorite topic of conversation, if not pastime.
"One should consider, before beginning a new search, that the Bumpus Farm is now the K- Mart parking lot," Wilson said.
Rumors have it, some of the swirling, ecto clouds and orbs regularly captured on camera are the angry specters of Soop and the farm worker hiding his stolen lucre.
Other legends surrounding the place is that a victim of John Norman Collins, the feared Ypsilanti Coed Killer of the 1960 was thrown over a tombstone there and that Collins himself haunts Soop Cemetery.
However, that victim was found in a cemetery in Denton, not on Old Denton road and Collins is still very much alive, serving life in Northern Michigan for the murders.
Which does not explain the ghostly images and voices captured there.
Cindy Blake, formerly of the Michigan Ghostwatchers, said they got the distinct feeling they were unwelcome there. And Blake does not scare easily.
As members of other groups took photos, some felt vertigo, as if they were falling rapidly forward when they focused their vision through the camera.
Other's heard voices speaking with them as they asked questions and many sensed a severe uneasiness.
Even the Tyler Road Cemetery has its ghosts that follow cars and disappear behind large tombstones.
Whether or not these places are haunted is in the eye of the beholder but as long as there's been a Soop Cemetery, rumors, like screaming banshees and wafting spirits, continue to fly.
http://www.bellevilleview.com/stories/1 ... 2008.shtml
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