Her Vacant Chair: the rocking chair headstone allegedly haunted by the spirit of a young girl named Pearl

3 min read

1 month ago Leo S

Originally written by Leo S.🙏🏽 in 2020, published in 2025

The Mayflower Hill Cemetery in Taunton, southeastern Massachusetts, was established in the mid-19th century, with locals calling the old section, used between 1862-1962, “Potter’s Field”, and is home to a collection of interesting historical graves. Among them, also one white marble headstone with a unique design that not only holds a tragic backstory, but is also allegedly possessed by the spirit resting there, Pearl E. French, which is shaped to resemble a child’s rocking chair.

Born on August 21, 1878, she was the daughter of Edwin French and Emma J. (Leonard) French who previously lived in Taunton but at the time were in Boston. Edwin worked in the city as a newspaper type composer.
Local lore had it that there had been a fire and a child had died, or that the child had misbehaved and been told to sit in the chair and not move, with fire took care of the rest.
Another story was that the child was ill and was rocked in the chair in her mother’s arms.
But not true, as Pearl tragically died from spinal meningitis on Sunday March 26, 1882 in a Boston Hospital, at only three years old, and was buried in this plot owned by her father.
As you can imagine, her parents were devastated, and an Empire-style rocking chair headstone was built in her honor, titled “Her Vacant Chair”, probably a reference to a poem published in 1850 by Richard Coe Jr. entitled, not by chance, “The Vacant Chair”, about the heartbreak of childhood mortality and of losing a child, that had been published in a magazine.

As this wasn’t enough, Pearl’s cousin, Veva Lucille Johnson, daughter of Alson and Ida Johnson, born October 28, 1880 and who died also of a spinal disease on April 26, 1884, two years and one month to the day after her death, would be buried next to her in 1884 and is the scroll stone monument to the right.
As the years went by, rumors began to emerge of strange and unusual happenings around their graves, with visitors who have reported the rocking chair headstone moving, a ghostly silhouette sitting in the chair, and floating orbs and lights in the vicinity.
In the mid-1980s, the headstone was cruelly destroyed by vandals, but It has since been restored and, still today, people occasionally leave toys and gifts on the chair in remembrance of the two little girls.
Actually the way the gravestone catches your eye, it can play games with your head making you think that it moved and, If you see it at low light and look at it from a distance, your eyes might play some tricks on you, because you are in a cemetery, looking for a grave supposedly haunted, right?