People travel from all over to visit a tiny burial ground hidden in the mountains of Columbia County.

It might be the oddest of all Pennsylvania attractions.

The resting place has no fence, no distinct borders and only about a dozen graves.

Yet the site has gained notoriety on PA Bucket List, the Pennsylvania Rambler, Pinterest, Roadside America.com, Flickr, YouTube, PBS and Atlas Obscura.

Folks show up - not because of who’s buried there - but rather how they were buried.

Hooded Grave Cemetery on Longswood Road near Catawissa, 35 miles northwest of Tamaqua, features two tombstones covered by ornate, protective iron shrouds.

A third shroud, or iron hood, was removed about 1930 after deterioration.

Remaining hoods belong to Sarah Ann Thomas Boone and Asenath Campbell Thomas, said to be sisters-in-law. They died in 1852, six days apart.

Both were in their early 20s and died a result of childbirth, say locals. However, that specific cause of death has not been verified.

When both were interred at what was then Mount Zion Cemetery, iron enclosures were placed over the graves.

The intricate hoods are similar to mortsafes, or iron cages sometimes used on graves in the mid-19th century in the United Kingdom but rarely, if ever, in the U.S.

In fact, the two ornate grave hoods in Pennsylvania might be the only ones of their kind in the country.

And that’s part of the reason why people flock to see them.

Mystery

The mystery is why the two graves were covered so dramatically.

Was it to protect the dead? Or to protect the living?

Local folklore points to the mystical.

“Legend was that they were vampires or witches or something supernatural and the cages were to keep them in their graves,” said Tonya Kreitz of Wysox.

Another says the cages protect the deceased.

“I lived in the house next to it. It was my backyard my entire life,” said Tina Butler, a Numidia native. She understands both sides of the story.

“My stepfather and I mowed it. The true story of the cages was to keep animals and grave robbers from digging up the graves. The superstitious part was about vampires, werewolves ... to keep them in.”

On top of that, graves were sometimes disturbed in the Victorian age by profiteers.

Back then, body-snatchers targeted rural graveyards. Bodies often were dug up and stolen, sold to anatomy schools for dissection and medical study.

More mystery

Yet another theory is that the women were buried with valuables. The iron gates were to provide some protection against grave robbers, some say.

Adding to the puzzle is the fact that the cages aren’t actually the same as mortsafes.

Mortsafes are typically plain iron bars embedded in concrete or dug deep to keep from being removed.

The Catawissa cages are more elaborate in design than mortsafes and are movable, although heavy.

Still another local theory is that the decorative cages simply showcased wealth.

“The family was in metal works and owned an iron company so they built these for ornamental purposes,” said resident Joe Klinetob.

The bending of the iron bars demonstrates talent of highly skilled craftsmen. The iron was possibly a product of local iron furnaces.

But another said the cages were for protection.

“I grew up about one-half mile from there. Two sisters died very young. During the era of their passing, grave robbers would steal corpses to sell to a medical school in Philadelphia; these hoods were to protect the graves from theft,” said Joe Reeder of Tennessee.

Still, the questions are endless.

Why are graves of the 1850s protected by exquisite ironwork cages in such a hard-to-find rural area?

And why only these few graves and not others, even other graves of the same family?

After the passing of 172 years, nobody knows for sure. The motives, the reasons, the logic. All details are apparently missing. Perhaps never recorded.

Will the true purpose ever really be known?

Time has erased the thinking and intent of our Victorian ancestors.

But the unusual cages they left behind send our imagination soaring.