{"id":491,"slug":"long-hill-burial-ground-shelton-connecticut","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Long Hill is the oldest — the '1720' that's the first stone, the 'Isaac Bennett' that's the founder buried. The 'shipwreck' is the origin — the 'Daniel Shelton' that's the swam ashore '85, the 'town named' that's the his descendants honored. The 'smallpox' is the '77 — the 'Josiah' that's the March death, the 'Danbury' that's the month before troops.","The 'Loyalist' is the refused — the 'Ripton Sheltons' that's the took no side, the 'obelisk '77' that's the great-great-grandson raised. The '113 stones' is the counted — the 'DAR '21' that's the photographed all, the 'broken and grassed' that's the found beneath. Long Hill is the commenced — the 'first death' that's the started the ground, the 'family monument' that's the 1877 added.","The file keeps Long Hill: the shipwrecked founder, the 1720 first stone, the smallpox puzzle, and the DAR census.","Long Hill Burial Ground is the archive's Connecticut file — the town's first grave."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Long Hill Burial Ground is the archive's Connecticut file — Shelton's starting point.","A burying ground keeps its founder — the file's suggestion being that Long Hill's hold is the primordial: the 'swam ashore' that's the began the family, the '1720' that's the oldest in town, and the 'Loyalist' that's the refused the war yet buried its fever."]}],"name":"Long Hill Burial Ground","aliases":[],"type":"CEMETERY","type_label":"Cemetery","cats":["HAUNTING"],"groups":["cemeteries","hauntings"],"desc":"Cemetery research record.","full_desc":"Long Hill Burial Ground is a cemetery in Shelton, Connecticut. Cemetery research record. Historian Kevin Daly identifies this as the burial place of Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey, her husband and five children. Local lore holds that Historical society identifies Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey with the later Hannah Cranna folklore, while separating her documented life from witch stories.","address":"275 Long Hill Avenue","city":"Shelton","county":null,"state":"Connecticut","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":41.304577,"lon":-73.139215,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Tourism points to Gregory’s Four Corners in Trumbull as Hannah Cranna’s grave; historical society instead identifies Long Hill in Shelton for Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey. Identity/grave discrepancy remains flagged, not silently merged.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":58.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.8,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":374,"type":"WITCH_LEGEND","description":"Historical society identifies Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey with the later Hannah Cranna folklore, while separating her documented life from witch stories. Long Hill Burial Ground's dead are the site's permanent residents; the reports are how the living say they keep noticing. The account has a collector's pedigree — written down as legend, which is the most honest status it can hold. Sources including 'Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey (1763–1831)' keep the claim in circulation. Cryptid or not, the report made the map — which is its own kind of existence.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":"Hannah Cranna","where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.65,"conflict_notes":"Conflicting place/identity attribution in https://ctvisit.com/articles/haunted-cemeteries. Review tombstone records before publishing a canonical Hannah Cranna gravesite.","source":{"name":"Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey (1763–1831)","url":"https://www.monroecthistory.org/hannah-tomlinson-hovey","publisher":"Monroe Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Historian Kevin Daly identifies this as the burial place of Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey, her husband and five children. The burial ground's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey (1763–1831)'. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey (1763–1831)","url":"https://www.monroecthistory.org/hannah-tomlinson-hovey","publisher":"Monroe Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Historical society identifies Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey with the later Hannah Cranna folklore, while separating her documented life from witch stories. Long Hill Burial Ground's dead are the site's permanent residents; the reports are how the living say they keep noticing. The story is documented as legend — recorded and retold, never verified as fact. Sources including 'Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey (1763–1831)' keep the claim in circulation. The story outranks the documentation, which is how you know it's folklore.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey (1763–1831)","url":"https://www.monroecthistory.org/hannah-tomlinson-hovey","publisher":"Monroe Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}}],"entities":[{"name":"Hannah Cranna","claimed_identity":"Hannah Cranna","verified":null,"summary":"Historical society identifies Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey with the later Hannah Cranna folklore, while separating her documented life from witch stories. Cemeteries keep their stories in the stones; Long Hill Burial Ground in Shelton, Connecticut has its version filed among them. Named presences persist where anonymous reports fade — the file's name here is Hannah Cranna.","behavior":"Historical society identifies Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey with the later Hannah Cranna folklore, while separating her documented life from witch stories.","area":null,"first_ref":null,"source":{"name":"Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey (1763–1831)","url":"https://www.monroecthistory.org/hannah-tomlinson-hovey","publisher":"Monroe Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}}],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Haunted Cemeteries","url":"https://ctvisit.com/articles/haunted-cemeteries","publisher":"Connecticut Office of Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},{"name":"Hannah Tomlinson-Hovey (1763–1831)","url":"https://www.monroecthistory.org/hannah-tomlinson-hovey","publisher":"Monroe Historical Society","type":"HISTORICAL_SOCIETY","authority":2}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":1,"sources":2}}