Franklin Holdridge 1844 - 1923 A serial killer walked here

This grave belongs to Franklin Holdridge, a largely ordinary man whose name survives today because of the unsettling legend attached to his daughter, Ella Holdridge — sometimes called Ellie in later retellings.

In the late 19th century, Ella Holdridge was known for wandering cemeteries alone. While other children played in streets and schoolyards, Ella preferred places of mourning. She walked the paths of City Cemetery, as well as St. Francis Cemetery and Salem Cemetery, lingering near fresh graves, watching funerals from a distance, memorizing names and dates carved into stone.

Newspaper accounts and later retellings describe her as fixated on death — not frightened by it, but comforted by it.

She reportedly learned funeral schedules. She knew which bells meant burial. She understood how grief gathered people together.

And according to period press stories that later became infamous, that knowledge turned dangerous.

Ella’s obsession with cemeteries and funerals allegedly escalated into a desire to create them. Sensational accounts from the 1890s claim she poisoned or otherwise killed neighborhood children so she could attend their funerals — returning again and again to cemeteries she already knew by heart. These stories earned her a place in modern true-crime lists as one of America’s youngest alleged serial killers.

Whether fully factual or shaped by moral panic and lurid journalism, the story reveals how deeply cemeteries were woven into daily life at the time — and how a child moving too comfortably among graves unsettled an entire community.

Franklin Holdridge lies here, silent beneath the stone, while his daughter’s name drifted into legend. The paths she once walked still wind through City Cemetery, unchanged — reminding visitors that cemeteries are not only places of rest, but places where stories linger.