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Overview
Slumbering beneath a shroud of deep forest and deliberate secrecy, Bachelors Grove Cemetery still exerts a powerful pull on paranormal pilgrims and curiosity-seekers around the world. Shielding the orphaned burial ground from ritual and idle vandalism has also buried the rich history of this magical place. Still, its eerie presence has dominated the folklore of the southwest side of Chicago for every generation since 1838. Brave the woods with Ursula Bielski to unearth decades of mysteries and myriad ghost stories, from the Magic House to the Madonna of Bachelors Grove.
Includes photos!
“Historian and paranormal investigator Ursula Bielski says Bachelors Grove, a cemetery located on the edge of Rubio Woods in Midlothian, is among the most haunted places in the world. Her book . . . is the culmination of years of research at the site.” —Chicago Tribune
“Bielski ascribes the site’s high level of activity to ‘an ancient force, something malevolent,’ as well as a spate of occult activity in the ’60s and ’70s that may have involved unsettling practices like animal sacrifice and grave desecration.” —Time Out Chicago
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781439658239 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Arcadia Publishing SC |
| Publication date: | 10/20/2018 |
| Series: | Haunted America |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 195 |
| Sales rank: | 734,106 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
SETTLEMENT
Cook County, Illinois — which includes the city of Chicago — is home to more than sixty-nine thousand acres of natural and reforested preserve area, the largest forest preserve district in the United States. Hidden in many of these woods of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County are the sometimes plentiful remnants of settlements dating to various periods of history and prehistory, including those left behind during the westward expansion of the nineteenth century. Often, hikers will be surprised by the discovery of house foundations, cisterns and wells, silos and attendant housewares (broken dishes and glassware, furniture, crockery, shingles, tiles and other items) scattered among the flora.
These mysterious reminders of lost lives are truly haunting realities at these hushed enclaves — mute souvenirs of an earlier version of the now-towering city and surroundings. They are almost a funny reminder of the single men and families who were so full of gumption in the most robust period of our heritage; their homesteads today look like trashed hotel rooms, the tenants having gone on to the next party. These were the first settlers of the American West — fearless, bold, far-thinking, at a time when the American "frontier" meant thirty to eighty miles or so west of Chicago. Of all the preserves in Cook County, however, one vanished settlement has always held more than its share of intrigue. Part of today's Tinley Creek Division of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, the preserve area called Rubio Woods comprises acres and acres of beautiful trails, expansive fields, diverse and beautiful wildlife ... and Everden Woods, home of Bachelors Grove Cemetery.
This book is about the one-acre settlers' cemetery called Bachelors Grove and the reforested area of now-public land immediately surrounding it. It's a tiny piece of the world today, but "Bachelors Grove" originally referred to a large parcel of land that included not only the immediate settlement area but also large parts of the area today known as Bremen Township: Tinley Park, Oak Forest, Midlothian, Crestwood and other areas, as well as settlement areas of other townships. Early settlement areas were known by their timber stands — their groves — since harvesting timber was the way the very earliest settlers were able to survive. Farming came later. And so these groves became beacons to prospective settlers, who believed they were made for them, knowing they had a better chance around these natural resources. Part of the original stand of timber at Bachelors Grove is supposed to still exist in Bachelors Grove Woods, a preserve that stands a short walk from the cemetery.
Few of the very first settlers of Bachelors Grove are buried at Bachelors Grove Cemetery; rather, most of that first wave were not really settlers at all, but squatters, who were here a year or two before the first public land sales even happened. Though they did make some of these earliest land purchases, in 1835, most went on to Blue Island, Tinley Park or Joliet or to points farther west: Iowa, Nebraska, even California. These first men and few families came in the early 1830s, mostly through the settlement at Chicago via the Vincennes Trace.
The Vincennes Trace was a major track running through what are now the American states of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. Originally formed by millions of migrating bison, the trace crossed the Ohio River near the Falls of the Ohio and continued northwest to the Wabash River, near today's Vincennes, Indiana, before it passed into what became known as Illinois. This buffalo migration route, often twelve to twenty feet wide in places, was well known and used by Native Americans as a major travel route. European traders and American settlers learned of it, and many used it as an early highway to travel into Indiana and Illinois. It is considered the most important of the traces to the Illinois country and, eventually, the larger West.
Myriad impulses drove Americans west in the earliest days: economic hardship in New England and various European points of origin, the desire for land and farming opportunities, overcrowding on the eastern seaboard and, overwhelmingly, the simple desire to move. The tendency of Americans to move, and to move westward in particular, has been studied by some of the greatest social scientists of the last two centuries. But major issues at first held the travelers back: uncertainty about the terrain and prospects was one; the Native American presence was another. While trappers, traders and rogue explorers took on the West in the earliest days — greatly inspired by the expedition of Lewis and Clark under President Thomas Jefferson's administration — most Americans were more timid. The War of 1812 had brought chilling tales of brutal massacres of settlers and soldiers by Native Americans, such as at Fort Dearborn, the future site of Chicago. Many reached the more open lands in Kentucky and Ohio, just beyond the eastern cities, and put down roots there, content with a bit of farmland and a chance to improve their families and futures. Those who ventured farther were rewarded with unrest and, sometimes, terror.
In 1832, the Black Hawk War found most pioneers fleeing to the nearest fort for protection; Fort Dearborn was overrun with refugees, crowded by the dozens into the lakefront cabins of the early traders to await an uncertain future. The Black Hawk War changed a lot for these and other Americans, however, who were chomping at the bit to go really west. Shortly after the war ended, a treaty was signed by the Potawatomi, Chippewa and Ottawa tribes, surrendering all territories in northern Illinois and Wisconsin. These huge populations of Native Americans were relocated to acreage west of the Mississippi River after thousands of years of calling these their tribal lands.
With the deals that were made and the relative peace that followed, the western lands beyond the Indian boundary line were now wide open, and there were many, many takers. The years between 1830 and 1850 were ones of massive migration across the United States. The first wave was almost wholly composed of unattached, unhampered single men who went ahead to search for a place where they might have the best chance to make it; families more hesitantly, more sanely, followed later.
For years it was widely held that no settlement or even a single house had existed in the area immediately surrounding Bachelors Grove Cemetery. Visitors wondered at what appeared to be mysterious house foundations in the woods, remains of old wells and silos and fragments of housewares. All sorts of fanciful tales grew out of this apparent disconnect between "history" and evidence. Today a wider population is realizing that Bachelors Grove Cemetery was, in fact, surrounded by a robust community of loggers, farmers and homesteaders who arrived in two waves between the 1830s and 1850s: first, the single men (mostly English and Irish); second, the largely German families who had caught up and, often, moved on to the lands their predecessors had already claimed and improved and then abandoned for points farther west or for larger cities.
Among the many names given the cemetery over the years, "English Bachelors Grove" is an almost forgotten one; yet most of the first property holders in Bachelors Grove were, in fact, English bachelors. Despite an enduringly hazy record of the earliest settlers to the area, Stephen Rexford has been commonly considered the first settler of Bremen Township. Rexford arrived at the settlement of Chicago in 1833, two years before the first land sales in Illinois. Like a handful of his like-minded travelers, he chose to go on to the Illinois lands beyond to find his future. He dropped his bag at what is today 159 Street and Cicero Avenue and began to harvest the nearby timber stand: Bachelors Grove. Close behind Stephen was his brother Norman Rexford, who named the future city of Blue Island and built the first substantial structure in town, the tavern that stood on the Vincennes Trace, likely built with timber from his brother's stand.
Brothers Mark, Hemen, David, Alvah and Ethan Crandall walked or canoed from Moira, New York, to Chicago — a distance of some eight hundred miles — in the early 1830s to find land in the Illinois wilds. They were some of a number of young men who went on to the fertile lands outside the bourgeoning city and purchased some of the first land titles at Bachelors Grove in 1835.
McClintock is a name that is familiar to serious researchers of Bachelors Grove because the earliest surviving map of the cemetery was drawn by Eugene McClintock — displayed today at the Tinley Park Historical Society. He and Thomas McClintock are found on lists of the earliest settlers of Bremen Township. The McClintocks, the Crandalls and the Rexfords reportedly planted the first orchard in the area: a grove of peach and other fruit trees recognized by the United States Agricultural Survey of 1833.
Other men came after, making the future township of Bremen their destination on the trek westward, and a few made their temporary homes immediately around Stephen Rexford's timber stand. But it was a family named Everden who first owned the land on which Bachelors Grove Cemetery was established, as well as the land immediately surrounding it.
The Everdens remain largely mysterious in the annals of Bachelors Grove history. Around 1832, Samuel and Corintha Everden (possibly married or possibly brother and sister) traveled to Illinois from New York with Samuel's two children, Lucinda and Edward Everden, and purchased parts of section 8 in Township 36 during the first land sales of 1830. Their purchases included the cemetery land.
Ironically, it now seems that Corintha Everden — a woman — was the first title holder of the Bachelors Grove land. Like Rexford and their other neighbors, the Everdens obtained these lands by patent. This meant that they likely had some connection to the land already when they were offered for the first public sale, just as Stephen Rexford and friends did, having "improved" the land they had squatted on for two to three years before the land sales opened. They were, essentially, getting "first dibs" because they had already been connected to the acreage.
But these first land sales in 1835 were fraught with fear, as there was a question as to whether or not the squatters had perfected their land titles. Though most or all of the squatters had lived on their land for two or more years in most cases and had improved upon the lands — clearing the land for farming, building homes and other structures, etcetera — there were still many vagaries about establishing these definite "ties" to particular land parcels. The settlers at Bachelors Grove and other settlements joined forces before the sale, agreeing that anyone already on a land parcel should be allowed to purchase his land at $1.25 an acre, whether the perfection of the land had been satisfied or not.
The settlers of the frontier appointed David Crandall as their spokesman at the land sale. Crandall was an imposing figure, standing six feet tall in a time when that was giant-like. He was known as a fearless Indian-fighting hulk who once "whipped eleven men by himself and kicked one man clear across the street like a football and killed him." Whether or not this account was exaggerated, we don't know, but we do have a report of what happened when Crandall took a stand at the land sale — and his brother, Alvah, backed him up. An account of it was published in the Chicago Record in 1908. It was a very "Chicago" style event, even then:
The first Illinois land sales of 1835 included land that would be known as Bachelors Grove Cemetery, sold, ironically, to a woman named Corintha Everden. The cemetery was first called Everden's for the owners of the land. When the Everdens sold their land parcels at the Grove in 1864, they did not include the cemetery land in the sale, leading to myriad problems. Cook County Land Records.
When the sale commenced the next day, [an official] read the terms of the sale. He stood on a balcony, the settlers ranging below. The terms stipulated that any person interfering with or intimidating the highest bidder should be liable to a fine of $500.00 and one year's imprisonment. Excitement was at a fever pitch. The settlers knew some of the land would not stand the legal test, and consequently could be sold to the highest bidder. [The official] had no sooner stopped reading when David Crandall mounted a box and cried in a voice out over the prairie, saying, "Settlers, the first man that bids on your land, knock his brains out." David did threaten one speculator by saying, "Just step aside and give me six feet of space. I want to lay out a corpse." The man walked away. Another man did bid $1.30 and Alvah Crandall knocked him down.
I think it well worth mentioning here that Alvah Crandall is buried at Bachelors Grove Cemetery.
The Everdens got their land, as did all of these other courageous homesteaders in Chicago that day. But the future and fate of the Everdens is largely unknown — as is the origin of the cemetery they left behind. In the 1870 census, I found Samuel, Corintha and Lucinda (or Lurinda) (now thirtynine) living in Cicero, Illinois, just west of Chicago, six years after the sale of their Bachelors Grove land to Frederick Schmidt. Two children — Albert, thirteen, and Frances, five — lived with them. Their father, Edward Everden, had moved to Chicago to work as a carpenter. I have found no trace of Edward's wife, the children's mother. The family had a rough time of things in general. In addition to his wife's apparent death, Edward's construction company saw tragedy twice. First, his dog bit a little girl on a job site, causing her death from rabies. A second incident involved a construction site accident in which one of his workers was killed. I then found Lucinda as "Lucina" on the 1880 census living in Norwood Township (probably Dunning Asylum), categorized as "insane." That same year, land owned by Lucinda Everden in Bremen Township was put up for sale by the executor of her estate. She must have been committed that year, because earlier that same year she appeared on census records as "single" and still living in Cicero. Albert, twenty-four, was by then married with his own household.
Mark Preston, part of the Bremen High School Bicentennial Project, came to believe that one or more of the Everdens died either on the way to Bachelors Grove or soon after their arrival in 1832, which led to the establishment of the cemetery. It's possible that Everden elders may have traveled with Samuel's family and passed away en route or after arrival or that infant children of Corintha died between 1832 and 1836 and were interred on their land.
No Everden burials are known today at Bachelors Grove; in fact, the whereabouts of the family's remains are a total mystery. For many years, the first known burial was that of Eliza B. Denny, who at sixteen eloped from Kentucky with Leonard Hutton Scott against the wishes of her family. Family lore says they were quickly forgiven and provided with money to purchase land in the wilds of Illinois when they arrived in 1834. Eliza Denny Scott bore seven children but passed away in November 1844, at the age of only twenty-six, leaving behind six little girls. A son, Leonard Jr., also died in 1844, but it is unknown at this time whether Eliza died in childbirth with her son or if the deaths were separate and unrelated. She is buried at the Grove, certainly with her infant child.
They, however, weren't the first. The first known burial at Bachelors Grove was that of William B. Nobles, one of the first settlers of the area. The headstone was stolen or destroyed sometime after 1935; however, he is believed to be interred either in the corner of the southeast quadrant of the cemetery or in the lot of the Cool (Hageman) family, next to the front gate, as his daughter, Jane Nobles Cool, married into their family. Whether Nobles was simply the first casualty of the settlement area or whether he had some connection to the Everdens, we may never know.
What we do know is that his long-gone headstone said he died in 1838. Here we see a typical example of weird Bachelors Grove history. Nobles's obituary — which was published in Schapper's history of Blue Island — clearly said he died on November 9, 1836. This was published over a century ago. Still, for all of the generations that have referenced this note countless times, no one ever really updated this in written histories of the Grove. All of the researchers and historians — including your embarrassed author — who have been "on this case" for so many years never saw that, even though we have all republished this obituary countless times over many decades. No one changed the date of the first burial from 1838 to 1836, until now.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Haunted Bachelors Grove"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Ursula Bielski.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Preface,
Archaeologist's Note. The Bachelors Grove Landscape: A Path into History, by Dan Melone,
Acknowledgements,
Part I: The Story of Bachelors Grove,
1. Settlement,
2. Removal,
3. Obscurity and Celebrity,
4. Desecration,
5. The Struggle for Bachelors Grove,
6. Bachelors Grove Today,
Part II: The Haunting of Bachelors Grove,
7. Legends of Bachelors Grove,
8. Grains of Truth,
9. The Witnessed Activity,
10. The Secret of Bachelors Grove,
Appendix A.: Notes on the Natural History of Bachelors Grove Cemetery and Environs, by Joe Cavataio,
Appendix B.: Current Known Burials at Bachelors Grove Cemetery, by Wendy Moxley Roe and Ursula Bielski,
Bibliography,
About the Author,