Parapedia - Seventh Day Baptist Cemetery
Seventh Day Baptist Cemetery is an old cemetery in Burlington, Connecticut which dates back to the late 1700s. It was used as a burial ground for members of the Seventh Day Baptist Church. The cemetery has mistakenly been referred to as "Burlington Center Cemetery" but is perhaps best-known as Green Lady Cemetery, due to a ghost that supposedly haunts the grounds.
The cemetery is best-known by the name of Green Lady Cemetery, due to stories and sightings of a green spectral figure known as the Green Lady. No one is exactly sure who the Green Lady was in life, but many believe she is the ghost of a Seventh Day Baptist named Elisabeth Palmiter. Legend has it that in April 1800, Elisabeth's husband, Benjamin, went into town to get some supplies. Suddenly a bad snow storm broke out. Benjamin decided to stay in town and wait for the weather to die down. When he didn't return right away, Elisabeth went out to try and find him.
After getting lost in the storm, she drowned in one of the nearby swamps. In one version of the story, Benjamin returned home to find his wife missing. After an exhaustive search, he found her frozen body in a swamp; she was wearing a pretty green dress. In other versions of the story, Benjamin was either unwilling to save Elisabeth or murdered her and threw her body into the swamp as a cover-up. Since this is a local legend, no one is absolutely certain what really happened. Regardless of what really happened, many people walking near the cemetery at night have claimed to see a female apparation surrounded in a green mist. According to most accounts, she merely appears without provocation or pattern, smiles and then dissipates. Some people have also claimed to see mysterious lights, looking like a flashlight or lantern carried by an unseen person. Some think it could be the ghost of Benjamin Palmiter, perpetually searching for Elisabeth in the swamp.