Black Creek Cemetery has been a burial and memorial park in Freeport, Florida since the 1800s.
The cemetery was established next to a small church on the site, but the chapel was demolished several years ago.
Today, a new, more modern church sits where the old one once stood.
Updated 2/10/2020 – A local legend is centered around this seemingly simple cemetery.
The story goes that a little girl and her brother were in the area, walking home sometime during the early 1900s.
They were running late, and in order to keep from getting into trouble they decided to take a shortcut.
Their shortened path cut through the burial ground, and thus they started to walk through.
Out of nowhere, a large bear appears and the children began to run for safety.
The nearest building was the bell tower that was connected to the former church.
The brother and sister climbed the bell tower, but the bear was strong enough to get inside as well.
The angry creature followed them up the many flights of stairs and mauled them.
The brother and sister died a short while later.
For many years a handful of townsfolk were convinced the bell tower was haunted as a result of that tragic night.
They believed that if you climbed up the stairs you could hear the phantom screams of the children, and the roar of the bear attacking them, every night on the stroke of midnight.
When the new church was erected, the bell tower was carefully disassembled and relocated out of state.
Things began to quiet down after the removal of the bell tower.
The rumors began to die down, and younger generations didn’t hear anything about what had happened all those years ago.
But all of that changed one day for a Freeport resident named Silvia.
A Psychic Prediction
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“My friend had a psychic come to her birthday party.
When it was my turn to speak with her she grabbed my hands, studied them for three solid minutes and looked at me with an unreadable expression,” Silvia remembered.
“She said, ‘visit many cemeteries…something magical will happen to you in one of them’ and that was it.
“She seemed so earnest, I couldn’t help but believe her,” she nodded fervently.
“And after that I started visiting local cemeteries on a somewhat regular basis.
Besides being a bit creepy, nothing had seemed significant in any of them.
I actually found it to be a relaxing hobby…
“Until I visited the Black Creek Cemetery after dark.
“I started wondering around the headstones, wondering if maybe the psychic had just been a fraud…there’s a lot of fake ones out there.
After a few minutes I began to realize I felt the presence of someone else at the cemetery with me, although I didn’t see anyone come into the park.
I looked all around and I thought I saw the apparition of a young girl, watching me from a few feet away,” Silvia said in awe.
“My gut told her to not be afraid of her, so slowly I took a few steps toward her.
We made eye contact and an image of a little boy and a dirty old teddy bear flashed in my mind.
Instantly I knew that the boy was her little brother, and that he was unhappy in the afterlife because he had to leave his favorite stuffed animal behind.
“Suddenly I woke up, and I realized that I was in my bed at home, and that I had dreamt encountering the girl.
But still…something told me that she had been real, that that girl had communicated to me directly.
And I knew what I had to do,” she said.
“I went to the store and I purchased a teddy bear and brought it to the cemetery.
I took it to a nearby tree and placed it beside the trunk.
The moment I did, I felt a warm breeze rush against my face, and I knew that Freeport psychic had been right all along.”