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| Egg Hill Church |
In the past ten to fifteen years, Egg Hill Church and Dauberman Lutheran Cemetery has developed a reputation by locals for being haunted. Of course, since being posted online time and time again, it has brought countless people to the remote setting who have done damage to the church and the cemetery. Before the legend went world-wide, I set out one cold February day to seek out Egg Hill Church for the first time.
I had heard the story from a friend of a friend; the church was supposed to be haunted by a former pastor who killed himself after killing a number of his congregation within the church (how he killed them, take a guess, because every time I've heard the story, I've heard a different version of it). Another story is supposedly the bell rings on its own. A third legend that circulates goes like this: if you drive up to the church from the Upper George's Valley Road, get out of your car, enter into the cemetery and then drive back to George's Valley, a man with a walking stick is said to chase after you.
With all of these stories bouncing around in my head, one foggy February morning I set out to visit the old church and cemetery. After missing the road that leads to the old church and cemetery, I finally found it and took the drive up the narrow dirt road to my final destination. As I crept through the fog, the church slowly came into view. The first thought that jumped into my head was "This is really creepy looking." The old church is plainly built; the brown boards and its simple look help give the church an eerie look to it.
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| Egg Hill Church |
The simple building was built in 1860 and had regular services until the 1920s. The church was built on top of Egg Hill, so named because early residents thought that the hill reminded them of an egg. The burials in the cemetery are older ones and the large pine within the cemetery has overgrown a number of the stones that protrude from within the old pine. The church and cemetery is surrounded by an iron fence that is more for decoration than to keep visitors out. A second thought popped into mind: "This is out of some horror novel."
I got out and explored the old cemetery and, seeing that the church was locked, I did not explore inside. However, nothing happened to me. No bells mysteriously called out. No ghosts chased me out of the cemetery. No old man chased me down the road swinging his walking stick. To be honest, in all the times I've stopped to visit the cemetery, I had absolutely nothing happen to me. Well, let me rephrase that - one time I had a police officer stop and ask me what I was doing in the cemetery. After telling him I was taking pictures of the cemetery and old church, he warned me not to mess with the church and advised me to be on my way.
Are the church and cemetery haunted? The only thing that haunts this area is the bad memories of the careless things people have done to it in the name of "research." The urban legend that involves Egg Hill Church is just that, an urban legend, but unfortunately the power of a "story too good to be true" carries more weight than the truth. After all, why let the truth get in the way of a good story that is definitely more exciting than the true history of this sacred place?
Though I like to think of Egg Hill Church as the rural church I first saw a long time ago, the truth is it is no longer "hidden" in the woods between Penns and George's Valleys. The last time I was past it, a new house was being built a couple hundred yards from the church. With the clearing of a lot of the trees around the cemetery and church due to the building of the house, a lot of the remoteness that I loved about the area is gone, though it still is out in the country and always will be in my mind
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