THE STORY
Reported Haunting
After part of Pike Mennonite Cemetery near Hinkletown suddenly collapsed into a deep sinkhole in January 1889, newspaper reports described a strange white apparition wearing a shining helmet and carrying a fair-haired child. Later folklore also tells of whispers and a child's cries heard among the graves after dark.
Pike Mennonite Cemetery near Hinkletown became the center of an unusual ghost story following a documented ground collapse in January 1889. On January 10, gravediggers preparing the grave of mill owner Samuel B. Sensenig discovered that the earth beneath them appeared hollow. Because the remains of Sensenig's infant son Isaac were buried nearby, the child's remains were moved before a new grave was prepared for Samuel. Within days, an area of the cemetery approximately ten feet square reportedly collapsed about fifteen feet into the ground. Contemporary newspapers reported the unusual subsidence. Soon afterward, additional newspaper accounts described a mysterious figure dressed in white roaming the cemetery at night. The apparition was said to wear a shining helmet surrounded by red and green light and to carry a fair-haired child, whom some observers associated with Isaac Sensenig. Stories also developed of low whispers or murmuring voices coming from the cemetery after midnight. Lancaster County's limestone geology offers a straightforward explanation for the original collapse: a natural sinkhole. The ghost stories that followed, however, were already appearing in newspapers within weeks of the event and have survived as part of the folklore of Pike Meeting House.