History & local legend
Shock Graveyard, also called Hans Graf Cemetery, is a small family burial ground near Rowenna in Lancaster County. A stone wall without a gate encloses graves belonging to descendants of Hans Graf. Local folklore gives the cemetery a guardian: a white wolf or hound seen among the headstones.
Some visitors describe only howling, with neighborhood dogs joining in until they leave. A more threatening version says that anyone who circles the wall seven times under a full moon will be hunted by the creature before sunrise.
Writer Adam Zurn visited on a rainy afternoon and recorded a dog beginning to bark as he crossed the wall. The barking continued until he left. In his November 2019 account, he also retold a 1982 report from Tom Wohlfeil, who said an unusually large dog or wolf had frightened him into running from the cemetery.
