Ghost Story # 2 - Bachelors Grove Cemetery

Ghost Story # 2 - Bachelors Grove Cemetery

At the end of this long path is a cemetery called Bachelors Grove Cemetery. Out of all the ghostly places and haunted spots in Chicago or its suburbs, this one is the Lulu of them all. Bachelors Grove Cemetery in Midlothian, Illinois is considered the most haunted spot in the Chicago area.

I have been reading some stories about this place recently and this one kind of intrigued me. This one guy says he’s only been to Bachelors Grove a couple of times and he has never seen anything, but he said as he was driving up getting close to the cemetery, AC/DC’s Highway to Hell came on the radio both times. He said that was a little freaky. So today as I drove up, I had some light rock station on and it had a decent song on, but then a Madonna song came on and let’s face it folks, I’m a rocker and she is not my style, so I changed the station to the Loop (FM 98) which is a rock station. I figured what the hell, let’s see what’s on. It was not AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. Instead it was AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells. I smirked to myself when I heard that. (I’m not shitting you).

There has been well over 100 reports of “unusual phenomena” as one ghost hunter has claimed it to be, “one of the most haunted cemetaries in Chicago, if not the world.”

In his 1978 volume, Weird America, Jim Brandon made the statement that the place “has problems.”

What kind of problems? First of all a nearly, completely desecrated cemetary, filled with unearthed graves, damaged and demolished tombstones and apparantly evidence of satanic rituals. Over the years, dozens of grave stones were removed from their original spots and thrown into the quarry pond that is right next to the cemetery itself. Vandalism has nearly destroyed almost every tombstone, with the exception of the large ones that are too heavy for any team of vandals to carry and dislodge.

Then the unexplainable phenomena. There is the “vanishing house” that many have claimed to have seen at the end of the path that you see in the photo. It allegedly is a two-story Victorian house with a swing and front porch. A dim light is said to be seen eminating from its front windows. When people walk closer to get a better look, it disappears. There is no house on this property, nor anywhere near the site. No property records exist to suggest there ever was.

Then there are the orb lights. A flashing blue light seen through the trees. Then the reports of several different types of ghosts. A woman dressed in white walking through the woods with a baby in her arms, a two-headed man that rises out of the pond, darkly hooded figures, and a phantom farmer with his plowhorse. Supposedly a farmer was plowing back in the 1900’s and his horse was startled and ran into the pond drowning the farmer and the horse. Also, there have people said to have their shirts tugged on and there was no one there and the proverbial cold spots in different areas.

This is a very old cemetery. It’s first burial was in 1844 and the few remaining tombstones have people who were born in the 1800’s. Most of the sightings listed above were common in the 1970’s. I know for a fact, that the nearby forest preserve woods was a party zone for teenagers back then and probably still is. Theories abound in what may have unearthed all these ghosts and phemoma. What sparked it may have been the satanic worship that may have been going on in the 1960’s and 70’s or the fact that this area may have been the site of and Indian triabal burial ground. The desecration of all the graves most likely didn’t help things either.

Many photographs have been taken here showing mistlike apparations or human type figures. Some of these I have seen and either look stupidly cheesy, fake, or borderline plausible.

My personal experience with Bachelors Grove. I convinced my friend Frank to visit this place with me on March 24, 2001. I know this exact date because when I took out my Chicago Haunts book, it still had the typed up itinerary in it with the date on it. The creepiest thing about the whole place is the long narrow path that leads to the cemetery. That is the one you see in the photo. The photo was taken at the day of this writing (10/15/09). As you walk up the path, you can’t help feel as if someone is going to jump out from one of those bushes that line up so thickly along and so close to the paths edges. Since there has been so much talk about ghosts and so many visitors to this place, I was keeping an eye out for the creeps, because it is the human factor that you have to worry about in the Chicago forest preserves, not the ghosts. When we finally turned into the graveyard, we saw broken headstones and old worn out headstones with real old dates on them. It was an odd place totally grown over with weeds, grass and an occassional tree in spots. It was a sad looking area. We were hoping to see or hear something, but did not.

As we left and were walking down the path, a fairly big guy was walking behind us and kind of sped up his pace to catch up with us and starting talking to us. He was in his late 20’s or early 30’s. We chatted about how haunted the place was supposed to be, but we did not see anything weird. He started confiding in us that he and his buddies would hide out in the back woods away from the cemetary with night goggles and wait for the teenagers to come in at night to check out the “spooky cemetery”. He said that they would make sounds and shine flashlights to give them a good scare. The more he talked about it, the creepier he got. We all walked across the street to the forest preserve parking lot and his car was parked only a couple of spaces from my truck. Before he pulled out he stared at my front license plate for a long time before he pulled away. That kind of creeped out my buddy and me.

Ghost Story # 2 - Bachelors Grove Cemetery belongs to the following groups:

Abandoned Dark Creepy and Deepest Darkest Fears Available for sale as

Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, Laminated Prints, Mounted Prints, Canvas Prints, Framed Prints and Posters