Haunted Nazareth: The Indian Tower

Most people who grew up in or around Nazareth know of the , the monument and accompanying observation tower that sits off High Street in the borough, adjacent to the Holy Family Cemetery.

The Indian Tower actually sits at the highest point of the original 5,000 acres in Nazareth and is owned by the .

What some people may not realize when they’re walking from the small gravel lot to the tower, however, is that they’re walking on graves.

“People are buried under the monument,” said Scott Morro, a Nazareth native and author. “You don’t know who you’re stepping on.”

Morro, who now resides in Bethlehem, wrote a book in 2006 called “The Cross Over,” in which he uses the Indian Tower as not only an inspiration, but as a time-traveling plot device.

For his book, Morro did extensive research on the Indian Tower, and what he found was a little disconcerting for anyone who’s visited the tower before.

“This place is pretty active," he said. "There’s all kinds of people that have had experiences at the tower."

According to his research, visitors to the tower have seen shadows and heard voices. Some investigators have attempted to record audio via EVP, or electronic voice phenomenon, and caught phrases like “leave my people alone” and “get out.”

What’s interesting about the Indian Tower is that out of the 67 people buried there, only four were Native Americans.

“People call it the Indian Tower… but the monument is dedicated to veterans, not to Indians,” according to Kathleen Unger, a lifelong Nazareth resident.

Although she doesn’t consider herself a historian, Unger certainly has a wealth of information about Nazareth. As she puts it, she “deals in nostalgia.”

She remembers, as a little girl, using the tower with fellow Girl Scouts as a vantage point to spot enemy planes during World War II.

“You can see all the way over to Allentown and all the way down to Easton,” Unger said.

Of all of the names inscribed at the monument, only two are missing last names. They are known only as Sarah and Beata, each with the word “Indian” etched beside their name.

“There are children buried there that died in the smallpox epidemic… not very pleasant deaths,” said Barbara Dietterich, one of the  board members.

When Morro was publishing his book, he visited the tower to get pictures.

“In one shot, you can actually see what looks like footprints moving from the monument to the tower," he said. "No one had been there, and we hadn’t walked anywhere near it."

In another shot, looking between the monument and the tower, a thin white light appeared -- it looks like a bony arm or finger. That shot made it to the back of the book jacket for “The Cross Over.”

“There were always stories that the place was haunted… growing up, I was mostly a skeptic,” Morro said. “I’ve gone from skeptic to absolute believer.”

So, the million-dollar question: is it haunted?

According to Morro, “Yeah, I think so.”