Slightly Odd Fitchburg

Shit happens. Some awful, no good, very bad shit happens, and that’s just life. It’s not just the shit that’s always the biggest problem, though. The bigger problem is that the shit always wants to drag you down with it. It has no other function other than to grab onto you and try to stay with you for the rest of your life, stopping you from ever getting back up after it knocks you down the first time. If you find yourself wallowing in it long after that initial shit attack, then that’s just what it wants. It’s done its job and it can go slinking back to the hell that birthed it until it finds someone new to fling itself at. That’s what happened to Mrs. Martha Keyes in April of 1755. This is her story, and the story of her daughter, Lucy Keyes. Definitely not looking good when a headstone is the first image. The History It was April 14, 1755 when Martha Keyes sent her two eldest daughters, Patty Keyes and Anna Keyes to fetch her some sand from Wachusett Lake. They were a t...

  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the world is full of assholes. I know, it's a tough pill to swallow, but here we are. You get assholes who just can't stand it when someone else does something they don't understand and you get assholes that can't bear someone being happy and keeping to themselves. Luckily, there are occasional heroes who stand up for the God given right to exist without having to answer to these drooling buffoons. One of those heroes was Joseph Palmer, who hailed from an olde timey village just outside of Leominster. He had the courage to live life the way he wanted and he never made a single excuse for it. This was a man who knew the glory of a luxurious full face beard and suffered in its name. That's right; our hero Joseph Palmer was... Gasp! The History Joseph's story began in 1798 when he was born in Massachusetts. He grew up and turned into a farmer living is Notown, MA. Although it's now just a bunch of sweet loo...

This is something that happened last year. I was really looking forward to going again this year, but what are you gonna do? Viruses be virusin', yo. It's called the Forge-In Blacksmith Art & Renaissance Festival and it's been going on for over a decade and a half in Fitchburg. It's cancelled for COVID reasons, so I figured I'd finally get around to sharing it and remembering the good, old days of late September 2019. Look, no masks! It's your typical looking festival from the outside. You get your barricades, your crowd of people, and your smell of burning coal in the air. It's when you get inside that you see what sets this festival apart: Nerds. Seriously, there's every kind of nerd here. There are horse nerds: Neigh-ERDS! Blacksmith nerds: The guy on the left is either ripping a bong looking at a knife. I honestly don't remember. Jousting nerds: "That's Lady Nerd of The Seven ...

Nestled deep within Fitchburg, and far away from the consciousness of anyone outside Worcester County, you'll find Dean Hill Cemetery. It's a decently sized open field with far fewer headstones than you're used to seeing in a graveyard. It was established in 1791 as a resting place for the soldiers of the Revolutionary War and their families. Colloquially known  as "The Rev," it's also home to more than its fair share of ghost stories. Join us, if you will, on our search for the... Ghosts of "The Rev!" JUMP SCARE! There's really no way to overstate just how out of the way this place is. To give you an idea, here's the road leading up to it: If you squint, you can find the serial killer. It's on Ashburnham Road and was once close to the Dean Hill Tavern, which was built around 1777. The tavern is no more, but the cemetery still stands and gets all sorts of visitors, however unwelcome they may be. The cemetery i...