Haunted Cemeteries Read online

  HAUNTED

  CEMETERIES

  Creepy Crypts, Spine-Tingling Spirits, and Midnight Mayhem

  Second Edition

  Tom Ogden

  Guilford, Connecticut

  For Gary M. Krebs

  An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

  4501 Forbes Blvd., Ste. 200

  Lanham, MD 20706

  www.rowman.com

  Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

  Copyright © 2010, 2018 Tom Ogden

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information available

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

  ISBN 978-1-4930-3662-2 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-4930-3663-9 (e-book)

  The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Part One: Wraiths of the Windy City

  Chapter 1—The Resurrection Apparition

  Chapter 2—The Ghosts of Bachelor’s Grove

  Chapter 3—The Legend of Inez Clarke

  Chapter 4—The Helping Hand

  Chapter 5—The Greenwood Hauntings

  Chapter 6—Six Feet Under Chicago

  Part Two: Stateside Spirits

  Chapter 7—Old Town Terrors

  Chapter 8—Pretty in Pink

  Chapter 9—Kabar, the Cavorting Canine

  Chapter 10—Simply Marilyn

  Chapter 11—The Seventh Gate of Hell

  Chapter 12—The Lady in Gray

  Chapter 13—The Queen of Voodoo

  Chapter 14—The Storyville Madam

  Chapter 15—Till Death Do You Part

  Chapter 16—Nevermore!

  Chapter 17—From These Honored Dead

  Chapter 18—The Curse of Giles Corey

  Chapter 19—The York Village Witch

  Part Three: National Nightshades

  Chapter 20—Fifty States of Shadowland

  Appendix A: Funeral Notices

  Appendix B: A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Graveyards

  About the Author

  I want to thank all the people who shared their personal tales of ghost encounters and provided research assistance. Thank you to Mark Willoughby, Joan Lawton, Michael Kur-land, David Shine, and Barrett Ravenhurst, who put up with my many e-mails and phone calls to run a word, phrase, or ghost story by them. Thanks, too, to Gary M. Krebs, who first brought my work to the attention of Globe Pequot.

  And a very special thank you to Sharon Scharff, the reader who set this whole project in motion by spotting a gaffe in the first edition of Haunted Cemeteries. There wouldn’t be a second edition if it weren’t for you!

  Finally, my thanks go out to Sarah Parke, my editor at Globe Pequot; production editor Meredith Dias; copy editor Paulette Baker; layout artist Melissa Evarts; and proofreader Ashley Benning.

  I have to be honest. At first I wasn’t sure about writing a book on haunted cemeteries. The idea intrigued me, but I was under the mistaken opinion that there wouldn’t be much to talk about. Everyone’s afraid to walk past a graveyard at night, but how many cemeteries could there be that actually have ghosts?

  After all, I reasoned, spirits would have no reason or desire to stay close to where their remains are buried. If they were able to return from the Other Side, wouldn’t their first instinct be to revisit places they frequented when they were alive?

  But, boy, was I surprised. As I did some preliminary research, it became more and more apparent that there are plenty of burial grounds where people come into contact with the dearly departed. Before long, my task changed from locating cemeteries that are haunted to finding ones that weren’t. Which immediately presented a different quandary: Of the hundreds upon hundreds of stories about haunted graveyards out there, which do I share?

  One of the ways I determined which legends to include in the first edition of Haunted Cemeteries was how pervasive they are in ghost folklore. They either had to be among the most popular stories, found in almost every source I checked, or have some unique facets that made them worth the retelling.

  In some cases, so much was known (or presumed) about the identity of the apparitions and the details of the hauntings that I decided to recount the myths as straightforwardly as possible. In other instances, I created fictional characters to give the reader an idea of what it would feel like to come across the phantoms for themselves. Along the way, I tried to authenticate as many of the historical facts surrounding the legends as possible.

  Which brings us to this second edition.

  It’s an inescapable truth that no matter how carefully a book has been written, rewritten, and edited—no matter how many eyes check the manuscript—there are almost always a few mistakes. Sometimes they are minor typos, such as misspellings or missing words, but now and then factual errors creep in. Normally they’re corrected in the next printing of the book. (Most people aren’t aware that, unless there are enormous presales, most publishers no longer print huge quantities of books at a time. Rather than warehousing them, it makes more sense to print a few thousand copies and then reprint when the quantities run low.)

  A reader contacted me last year regarding what I considered to be a particularly egregious mistake in the first edition. I immediately contacted my editor to find out when the next printing was due. To my delight, not only was it time for more copies to be printed, but Globe Pequot was also interested in an updated and expanded second edition. I jumped at the opportunity.

  In the first edition, I had recounted the ghost legends of about two dozen cemeteries. What if, I proposed, we add two chapters that would allow me to give capsule descriptions of more than a hundred additional cemeteries—including at least one from every state in the Union?

  And that’s what you’ll find in this book. There were already legends about nine Chicago cemeteries in the first edition. (In fact, they took up the entirety of part one.) But, believe it or not, that was just a fraction of the number of haunted graveyards in and around the Windy City. In a new chapter 6, I’ve included an astounding eighteen more ghost-inhabited burial grounds within fifty miles of the Loop.

  Except for renumbering the chapters, part two remains more or less the same as it was in the first edition. It contains thirteen chapters of some of America’s most haunted cemeteries, starting from the West Coast and heading east.

  The biggest difference between editions is the change to part three. By staying in the United States, I’ve been able to include thumbnail sketches of more than a hundred haunted graveyards, listed alphabetically, state by state, in directory format. In chapter 20 you’ll find plenty of ghost-filled graveyards within a reasonable driving distance of almost every reader in the United States. (Sorry, Alaska. You may have to fly to yours.) Chapters 6 and 20 also allowed me to include the cemetery stories from all my other books in the Globe Pequot “Haunted” series.

  Finally, in the back of this edition, you’ll find two appendices to continue your armchair ghost hunting. The first, “Funeral Notices,” is a descriptive bibliography containing several of the works I consulted while preparing Haunted Cemeteries. It also contains the URLs for well-trafficked web-sites that provide lists of haunted graveyards. If you want to see the burial grounds for yourself, the second appendix, “A Ghost Hunter�
�s Guide to Graveyards,” is for you! It’s filled with street addresses, URLs, and more. If you do visit any of these sites, though, remember that burial grounds have strict rules about going onto their property, even ones that seem to be abandoned. I’ll detail some of the “Dos and Don’ts” in the introduction to appendix B.

  Now, if you’re ready, it’s time to take a look at the country’s most fascinating haunted cemeteries.

  Part One

  WRAITHS OF THE

  WINDY CITY

  Chicago has been the nation’s crossroads for almost two centuries, a place where cultures naturally intermingle. Perhaps that’s why many of its cemeteries are portals to the Next World. And we’re not talking just one or two graveyards. There are more than half a dozen haunted cemeteries within screaming distance of the Loop, giving the Windy City perhaps the densest concentration of haunted burial grounds in the world.

  First we’ll visit Resurrection Cemetery, where late-night sightings of a spectre have prompted police calls. Then onto Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery, where a farmhouse appears out of nowhere. A statue may come to life in Graceland Cemetery, and the apparition of a bride guides lost children out of Mount Carmel Cemetery.

  As we travel, we’ll touch on ghosts at Bethania, Evergreen, and Waldheim Jewish Cemeteries as well. Next, we’ll detour 150 miles down the road to Decatur to visit one of the most haunted graveyards of the Midwest: Greenwood Cemetery. Finally, we’ll double back for short descriptions of eighteen more Chicago-area burial grounds said to be haunted. So turn the page: Your first group of ghoulish graveyards awaits.

  Chapter 1

  The Resurrection

  Apparition

  In 1976, police rushed to Resurrection Cemetery in Justice, Illinois, to see if reports were true that a pale woman in white was trapped inside after closing. By the time they arrived, she was gone, but her handprints remained—burned into the bars. The spectre may have been the elusive Resurrection Mary, the phantom hitchhiker who has appeared to motorists for more than seventy years along the road that passes the cemetery.

  “This is Homer, out at Resurrection.”

  “So what’s the deal, sergeant? Was anyone locked inside the cemetery?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Is there anyone there at all?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well, what is it, exactly?”

  The story that police sergeant Pat Homer told people back at the station led to one of the most bizarre tales in Chicagoland ghost lore, and its aftermath resonates to this day.

  It started out simply enough—a nonemergency call to the Justice, Illinois, precinct the night of August 10, 1976. A man called from a pay phone, wishing to remain anonymous. Driving north on Archer Avenue on his way to Summit, he had glanced over as he passed the entrance to Resurrection Cemetery. To his surprise, a blond woman wearing a long white dress was standing inside the main gates, her hands clutching two of the bars. She was trying to get out!

  Or so it appeared. The motorist wasn’t sure. He told the police he’d been in a hurry, and it wasn’t until he had gotten several miles down the road that he began to worry about the stranger. The graveyard should have been locked at that hour, shouldn’t it? What if she was actually trapped inside . . . or in some kind of danger? He felt he had to let somebody know.

  What he didn’t admit to the patrolmen was that he was too scared to drive up to the front entrance. He’d heard too many stories about phantom hitchhikers haunting Archer Avenue. He didn’t want to run into any spirits!

  When Homer took the call, his first thought was that some kids had jumped the gate and were spotted after having vandalized the cemetery. But he had to admit it was possible that someone had gotten stuck inside after visiting hours. The iron bars around the graveyard, including those between the pillars at the front, were very high, and it would be difficult for anyone—especially a woman in an ankle-length dress—to shinny up and over them.

  Unless she was a ghost, Homer chuckled to himself.

  According to legend, sometime around 1939 the wraith of a blond-haired, blue-eyed lady began showing up at night outside Justice, thumbing on Archer Avenue. The earliest tales had the young woman asking to be taken to Oh Henry dance hall, which was three miles to the southwest in Willow Springs. (By the 1970s, the dance hall had been renamed the Willowbrook Ballroom.)

  If a driver wasn’t courteous enough to stop for her, the banshee was known to jump on the car’s running board. (Ah, running boards. Those were the days, thought Homer.) Or, more frighteningly, she might dash out into the street in front of an oncoming car to try to flag it down. Motorists have claimed their cars passed right through the girl, as if she were made of aether. Others admitted that they thought they’d run her over: They heard and felt the collision. But when they stopped to help the victim, she was gone.

  Sightings tapered off in the 1960s, but the most recent ones had the mysterious hitchhiker traveling in the other direction, away from Willowbrook. In most of those reports, the driver had seen the damsel in distress on the side of the road and stopped to pick her up. Others said they’d been dancing with the girl all night in the ballroom and offered her a ride home. Regardless of how she got in the car, she gave the Good Samaritan little information, except that her name was Mary and she was heading home, which was a little past Justice. For the rest of the trip, she didn’t say a word.

  As with many ghost stories, the tale has a dozen variations. Usually as the car passed Resurrection Cemetery, Mary would visibly dematerialize or instantly disappear. In others, she would become very agitated and insist that the car pull over. She would fling open her door and rush up the short driveway toward the graveyard. Just as she reached the entrance, she would evaporate into thin air. Sometimes after she vanished, the driver would see her one last time, walking noiselessly toward her grave on the other side of the gates.

  The other side of the gates?! Homer slammed on the brakes. That part of the old wives’ tale and the report he was currently investigating had too much in common for it to be a coincidence. He had been set up, sent on a wild goose chase!

  Well, he was less than a mile away from the cemetery. In case it wasn’t a prank, Homer knew he had to check the place out. One way or the other, he’d know soon enough. It was a slow Tuesday night, so the road was fairly empty. He’d be there in less than a minute.

  In many tellings of the Resurrection Mary legend, she became a spectre after being hit by a car as she walked home from the ballroom. She had set out on her own after being jilted by a lover. In other versions of the tale, the car she was riding in crashed and she was fatally injured. After the funeral, her parents buried her in Resurrection Cemetery wearing a long white gown and the very dancing shoes she had on when she died.

  Somewhere along the way, people began to think that the apparition Mary was a Mary Bregovy, whose grave could be found in Resurrection Cemetery. But Bregovy had died in an auto accident in downtown Chicago and looked nothing like the spectral hitchhiker. Nevertheless, many believers in the paranormal insist that the two women are one and the same.

  Well, people can convince themselves of anything, thought Homer as he pulled up in front of the graveyard. If they hear about this police call, the next thing you know they’ll say it was Resurrection Mary who was standing here at the gate.

  He stopped the engine, leaving his high beams on to illuminate the scene. As he suspected, there was no one around. In fact, the place was deathly quiet.

  He stepped out of the squad car to take a closer look. Although the midsummer heat had burned off for the night, it was quite humid, with barely a breeze moving in the evening air.

  As he walked to the fence, Homer slowly ran his flash-light from one side of the wide entrance to the other. The tall iron bars, a deterrent to anyone who wanted to break into the burial ground after hours, were standing there like silent sentries, completely undisturbed.

  Or were they?

  Homer focused his light on the
centermost bars in the gate. It wasn’t possible! About four feet from the ground, at waist level, two of the bars were bent! One was only moved slightly out of whack, but the other had a definite curve to it.

  And more incredibly, both bars had a series of indentations, spaced a few inches apart, pressed into the weathered light bluish-green patina. They were fingerprints!

  It was as if some unknown person—or entity—had grabbed the bars with both hands and then, with incredible strength, separated them enough to be able to force himself (herself? itself?) between them!

  Shaken, Homer made his way back to the police car. He took a few moments to collect his thoughts, then called in to report. After a few more minutes staring at the mangled gate in stunned bewilderment, he started up the motor and headed back to the station. Nothing more could be done until morning.

  The next day Homer drove out to the graveyard and sought out the caretaker to find out what had happened to the gate. The explanation was simple, he was told: A maintenance truck had accidentally backed into the bars, causing them to bend. Exact duplicates couldn’t be found, so the cemetery had hired a welder to use an acetylene torch to straighten them out.

  For the first time, Homer noticed several black horizontal lines—scorch marks—on each of the bars. In the darkness the night before, they hadn’t been visible.

  But what caused the grooves that looked like fingers? Well, that’s exactly what they were, sort of, the grounds-keeper admitted. After the workman got the bars to the correct temperature, he used his own hands, safely covered with asbestos gloves, to try to move the bars back into place. Unfortunately, he wasn’t successful. But the iron had become soft enough to pick up the impression of the man’s fingers.

  Sergeant Homer and the rest of his staff were satisfied. But they didn’t count on the story taking on a life of its own.

  You see, the police weren’t the only ones to notice the gates. Word spread rapidly in the ghost hunter community, and soon curious spectators were coming to see the anomaly for themselves.