It’s time for another cemetery post! This time featuring the iconic Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery in Midlothian, IL.
I haven’t done a cemetery post lately, and I’ve had this sitting in my drafts for a while, so I thought now was a good time to share it with everyone. I’ll also have a Texas cemetery post in the near future!
I’m sure by now most people have heard of Bachelor’s Grove. It’s regarded as one of the most haunted locations in Illinois, and possibly the country. There have been reports of vanishing farmhouses, orbs of light, a ghost horse, and the famous ghostly woman sitting on a tombstone.
The entrance to the forest preserve path that leads to the cemetery grounds isn’t very obvious if you’re not looking for it. Once you find it, there’s a slight walk down a pathway through Rubio Woods.
Trail to cemetery entrance.
Eventually you’ll reach the cemetery to your right. The earliest estimated burial here was in 1844, and the last in 1989. It sat abandoned for years, and has had countless issues with vandalism. Back when I visited in 2014, the cemetery had had it’s fence repaired, and there were groundskeepers/caretakers maintaining the grass and keeping things clean. I haven’t been back since, but I hope this still holds true today to help preserve the cemetery.
The stone in the photo below is the one you will see in the famous ghost photo of the “woman in white.”
Bachelor’s Grove isn’t very large overall, but it spans a decent amount of area, and all of the remaining stones are very spread out from one another. At one end, there’s an opening in the fence right at the edge of a small pond. Unfortunately, there are some headstones at the bottom of this pond that used to be in the cemetery but were tossed in many years ago.
Rubio Woods Forest Preserve surrounds Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery. There are many hiking and biking trails located within.
While visiting, we were fortunate enough to run into one of the caretakers of the area, who knew the forest preserve well. He spent some time showing us around. If you look closely while exploring, you can find remnants of an old settlement on the land. There are holes from former silos, and even a few remaining bits of structure foundations. If you look closely at the photos below, you can see some holes, indents, and stones.
I hope you enjoyed this little write-up of Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery and Rubio Woods. All photos were from a couple different visits in late 2014. I no longer live in Chicago, but I hope to return here again sometime in the future.
If you ever decide to make a visit, please remember to be respectful of the area, and don’t visit after dark. If you’re caught, you risk fines and even arrest, so don’t take any chances! Also remember to say hello to any caretaker(s) you run into, you never know what information you might learn!
More information (and a few ghost photos!) can be found on these great websites:
