The Matlock Cemetery
These pictures were taken with a Digital Camera Olympus C-3000 zoom. This little cemetery Is in Matlock, (Grays Harbor) Washington. It's so small, if you aren't careful, you'll miss it. The Cemetery is very active with spiritual activity, cold spots, rare scents of lemon, and the sense and feeling of being watched. November 3, 2002.
This is the grave of John Tornow. Since 1909, when John Tornow first took to the woods, his tale has been told and retold, embellished upon, and straight lied for almost a century.
Tornow both terrorized and transfixed local residents and regional newspaper readers. During the manhunt, reports scrawled stories of the "Beast-Man." In the Wynooche, they would say, in that vast, unexplored timber at the top of the world there lived a hermit who murdered his own nephews, then ambushed the deputies who hunted him and finally was killed in a bloody shoot-out in a swamp guarded by an army of tethered frogs.
No story could better whet the appetite of even the most jaded newspaper editor in Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, or points farther removed. Newspaper publicity transference a reclusive, angry young man into a "demented...madman outlaw," crazed to kill whomever he met. They demonized Tornow as "Wildman of the Wynooche" and fed the public's hysteria from Port Angeles to Chehalis. Some even credit the Tornow story with inspiring Edgar Rice Burroughs to pen his Tarzan stories, the first which appeared in 1912.
Over the years, Tornow has manifested the spirit of the forest: shadowy, frightening, yet somehow free.
On the grave within this picture, there is a toy bear, pennies, dimes, nickels and various other objects.
On this grave in the middle of the two plaques in a big chunk of Onyx. It's about 2ft tall and about a foot wide at the base or maybe a bit more. The Onyx, is used for "grounding" which is to keep wandering spirits still. (Or Stable). The feeling is that they still haven't yet crossed over.
Pictures Copyright © WinterSteel
