Egghill Church - So creepy it has to be haunted right?

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Bored in our hotel while in State College, Pennsylvania, we found a tourist guide and glanced at the “Haunted Places” article written for the Halloween season. One place in particular caught our attention: Egg Hill Church and there was a gruesome legend attached to it. The legend states the minister of the church went crazy one day and poisoned his whole congregation, went to the basement and beheaded the Sunday school children and then buried them all out back in the churchyard. Another part of the legend states the reverend then hung himself in the bell tower.

The church, built in 1860, sleeps on Egg Hill Road, a winding, one lane dirt road that makes you forget the world is a crowded place. Our GPS guided us into the backwoods area of Pennsylvania. The “creepy factor” of Egg Hill Church is high, so it’s no wonder that throughout the years, it acquired an even creepier urban legend and has been subject to vandalism over time.

According to a little blurb I found on the Internet, some students from nearby Penn State University took the original church bell on a dare. They were caught and as punishment, forced to place the bell back where it belonged. The property is a historic burial ground in Pennsylvania and if people are caught vandalizing it, the penalties are quite stiff.

Our first impression of the church as it loomed into view was, whoa…that’s creepy looking. A small, old cemetery sat to the right of the church. Some of the people buried there had been born in the 1700’s and the last interment was 2005.

We wandered around the cemetery, glancing down at the stone reminders of people, reading old inscriptions and taking pictures. You can’t enter the church, but there was a little opening in one of the old wooden shutters where I could glance in and see the old pews inside. The church is still opened a few times during the year and the occasional wedding takes place at the rustic location. Did the heinous story associated with the church ever take place? Most likely no and there’s no history to prove such a tale. But like anything creepy, a legend always comes with it. It’s a package deal.

Have you been to Egg Hill? Write us and share your experience!

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Reader Submission - Does This Church Leave a Curse? A Must Read!!!

Written by J. Johnson

I stumbled upon your article about the Egg Hill Church in Centre Hall, PA. Once in awhile I'll do a web search of the haunted location because I am always trying to get to the bottom of what actually occurred there so many years ago. Is it all just a hoax, or does some sort of evil presence really inhabit those grounds in and around the Egg Hill Church? After years of personal torment, I am convinced that something evil existed there or still does exist there. In your article you alluded to an incident where several PS students vandalized the church a few years back. I was there the night the church was vandalized, but I did not contribute to the vandalizing. However, I was guilty by association because I helped transport the bell back to State College after it was cut down. ! In hindsight, I wished I'd never been part of the act. I can give you the cliffs' notes version of my story. I've actually thought about writing a short story about my experience at Egg Hill. I think it may help me resolve what happened there that night in 2003. Here it goes.

I was a student living up in State College for the summer; I am a native of Pittsburgh. My father persuaded me that it would have been a great idea if I were to finish my final 9 credits during the summer semester following my senior year, so I didn't argue. As it turns out, the decision to stay in State College that summer was perhaps the worst decision I'd ever made. I contributed a lot of my misfortunes in the years prior to the bad decisions that were made that summer, with my choosing to be involved in the "Egg Hill incident" as being the worst decision of all. Gentlemen, I can attest to one thing: my choice to take part in helping steal the church bell has ruined my life, in certain regards. I wish I could go back and change the events of that night 8 years ago; my ill advised decision to step foot on the grounds of that churchyard has haunted me ever since. We all stood around the roof and watched as one person cut the bell from its supports and let the 60 lb iron teacup fall, crashing through the shaft of the tower and into the basement of the church. After that we decided to hang around for a while and crack a beer. The one kid, "CQ," was really demented and mocked my Christian spiritual beliefs and me as he proceeded to perform a generic séance in the church basement. Being the out-of-towner, I was unaware of it at the time that CQ was such a degenerate, or I would have never been with them that night in the first place.

My good-natured but simple friend, "LM," was kind of the ringleader, and he was all for taking the bell back to State College to show all the town locals how big his balls were for going into an area that was so widely regarded as "evil" or "haunted" and coming out with 1/3rd-ton trinket. I realized at that point that I couldn't escape the inevitable--those guys were not leaving that church until they had the bell in the bed of the F-250, and they needed me to help them lift it in. At that point I was a nervous scared wreck, and I was kicking myself for even agreeing to go with them to the Egg Hill church. I'd heard the legend regarding the minister who supposedly killed his congregation and the kids in the basement, so I agreed to go along because it was a rush for me to visit this so-called "haunted" place.
I should've told them to leave me at Raystown Lake where we were fishing all day. I'm not sure what we uncovered there that night in the church basement, but I don't think any of us involved in the incident have been the same. Aside from the numerous fines and humiliation that awaited us in the wake of our "prank," we've all endured our fair share of punishment. How stupid were we?

After the story got out that the Egg Hill bell was in LM's apartment, the cops were all over it. But before they had a chance to claim the stolen piece of property, we stashed the bell in a farmer's junkyard/field out in the middle of nowhere and denied the whole thing. Thanks to LM taking the heat, the cops never did question me and it went as if I'd never even taken part in the incident. At the time of the incident, you could argue that I had my life had been pretty well figured out. I was going to graduate from Penn State with a degree in secondary education, having just come off of two semesters on the Deans' List. I was going out in a bang, having a good time while still maintaining my academic obligations. I had made some connections in the educational world, and it seemed as if I were going to be able to find a teaching job. Needless to say, I didn't receive my teaching certificate on time, and I've arguably never completely gotten my life back on the right track. Back to the story.

Not even a week after helping my local buddies heist the bell, two of us were brought up on charges of theft and vandalism--luckily I was not one of them, but only because LM, my one true friend in the group, insisted to the police that I had no involvement in the act. LM's record took a hit, and I offered to help him pay his fines. In some ways though, I feel as if I've suffered worse than any of the others. I lost something much more valuable than any material object; I lost my spirituality. I felt like God disowned me after taking part in the incident, as harmless as it seemed when we committed it. The week after the incident, I was brought up on plagiarism charges for lifting a paragraph from an encyclopedia article on the internet and not citing it in a research paper. The charges failed me for the class, and I never did graduate on time. My parents kicked me out when I returned home after I failed to meet their expectations for me, and my transcripts are forever tainted by my plagiarism charges, which have made it nearly impossible for me to ever obtain a teaching job in the state of PA. Now, the whole plagiarism thing could've been a coincidence, but I felt like I was being punished from above for my involvement in the despicable act. I was what you would've considered a "practicing Christian"--just mixed up with the wrong people at the wrong time. A harmless Friday night fishing trip at Raystown Lake gone wrong--some Christian I was, eh?

Since the "Egg Hill incident," I've never been able to reclaim my previous state of Christian spirituality. I feel that by just being there that night, my soul has been tainted forever. Black was all I felt for months after my involvement in the crime. I felt like the soul had been sucked out of my body. I used to wake up in the middle of the night screaming in my sleep, and the conjured image of standing in that dark grotesque church basement always seemed to pop into my head as I would wake up. This wasn't just a temporary issue; I've had midnight tremors and nighttime hallucinations for years now, prior to the incident. Something unexplainable happened to me at that church that night, and I honestly felt that some sort of evil encompassed me that I have never completely broken free of, even until this day nearly a decade later. I'm still trying to get my career on track, I completely fell away from God and Christian fellowship, and I've become a nervous paranoid person who is afraid of the dark. I should also mention that I suffered from a serious allergic eye infection shortly after my involvement in the incident--a minor but weird coincidence. As a former man of God, I've always believed that all people are plagued by demons or demonic influence--some worse than others. I also believe that Satan wants to see all of us fail, and I was one of the dumb ones who let him in too easily. Aside from the sleeping disorders and hallucinations, I've battled with the following demons or influence, if you will: drug dependence, depression, anger, and envy for those who have achieved their goals in life--I'm still seeking mine.

 

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Email Submission January 2009

"I saw your blurb about Egg Hill Cemetery and just wanted to tell you I went there in the fall last year.

I am not sure what time you went at (pictures look like mid afternoon) but I made the trek there with a few of my friends at 2 A.M.,...not a wise decision. 

Just driving up Egg Hill road was scary enough! Then just getting myself out of the car was hard!  We walked up to the church and managed to get within 20 feet and that was enough for us.  None of us could really handle it and my friend was on the verge of tears. Just hearing the story of what happened- let alone going there, sends chills down my spine.

We have not recently returned (nor do I plan on going back) and from what I’ve heard, there is now a guard house to keep people away.  Sucks for the officer who has that job! Also, rumor has it that there is an old man who tries to lead groups on tours of the church and gets you lost on purpose and tries to separate the group and kill you all.

My friends and I believe there is a haunted graveyard along 550 through Storms Town.  Dropping my friend off at his house around 1230 A.M, we saw a man walking around with a flashlight.  I drove back five minutes later and there were about 15 people walking around.  My friend and I looked at each other and decided to return again after five minutes, but nobody was there. Maybe it was just us, but it was weird as hell, and after Egg Hill, it really freaked us out!

I will never forget the day I went to Egg Church, and it was possibly the worst idea I have ever come up with."

 

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