Kinder Der Nacht

Not far from Swamp Road lies another site famous for a century and a half for the Ghostly Visitors from the other side.

Near the corner of Watkins Rd. and Palmer road is the St. Jacob cemetery.

The remnants of the Old St. Jacob Church can be seen on the east side of the cemetery. Since the 1820s early settlers from all over the world have been buried with the hope that they would “Rest In Peace”.

As with any cemetery from the early 19^th century, there is a disproportionate number of children interred there. Early German and Swedish pioneers had seen the ghostly images of children playing among the headstones.

These spectral children were called “Kinder Der Nacht”, which means

“Children of the Night”

Singing and laughter of the children frolicking inside their iron fence-enclosed playground have caused many a late-night walker and buggy driver to have the hair raise on the back of their neck. In these days of speeding air-conditioned cars, they generally go unnoticed.

Psychics have detected no sense of evil emanating from the children, apparently they are simply harmless spirits unaware of our presence. If you get a chance to go by the cemetery, late one night, roll down your windows, wait a moment or two and listen intently for faint laughter, or a dim image of a happy little child playing forever with his friends among the white, cold tombstones of the sweet little “children of the night”.

The “KINDER DER NACHT”!