Читать книгу Chicago Haunted Handbook - Jeff Morris - Страница 21

NAPERVILLE CEMETERY

705 South Washington Street, Naperville, Illinois 60540

directions

From the center of Chicago, take I-290 West for a little more than 13.5 miles to I-88 West. Follow I-88 West for 7.5 miles to I-355 South. Take I-355 South for a little more than 3 miles and take the Maple Avenue exit. Keep right on the exit and merge onto Maple Avenue toward Naperville. Follow this road for almost 5 miles and turn left onto Washington Street. The cemetery will be on your right.

history

Whenever the words “ghost” and “Naperville Cemetery” are mentioned in the same sentence, locals immediately say the name Hillegas. Charles Hillegas and his wife (either Sarah or Jessie) were by all accounts incredibly happy together. Unfortunately, though, in the midst of this happiness, tragedy struck. Mrs. Hillegas fell ill and died. Here is where the two accounts of the story begin to diverge.

One account of the story states that she died in 1898. The other states that she died of influenza in 1912. Either way, Charles was heartbroken and had her body buried in Naperville Cemetery. It is here that the story becomes even darker.

According to one version of the story—the version printed the next week in the local newspaper—Charles began screaming that she was still alive as the casket was being lowered into the ground. Charles’s concerned friends took him home and kept careful watch over him. A week after the body had been buried, he managed to slip away to the cemetery. He dug up the remains of his wife and took her home. His friends attempted to talk sense into him, but Charles armed himself and hid out in his barn to protect his wife’s remains. Eventually, the sheriff captured him. His wife was returned to the cemetery, and he was sent to a mental institution.

While the above version of the story is what was reported in the local papers at the time, most people in Naperville know a different version of the story. Charles was an amateur chemist and, after the loss of his wife, he worked to develop a ‘potion’ to bring her back from the dead. Years after her burial, he felt that he had succeeded and went to the cemetery and dug up his wife. He gave her the formula.

The story goes on to say that he lived in his house with the corpse of his wife for two weeks before someone found out.

ghost story

Mr. and Mrs. Hillegas are buried in Naperville Cemetery. Perhaps they are one of the reasons for the plethora of ghosts that have been seen in the cemetery. The most often-seen ghosts take the form of glowing orbs of light. The orbs can be any variety of colors and sometimes even blink on and off. The blinking orbs have been seen so often that they have gained the nickname, “the hide-and-go-seek lights.”

Beyond the lights, there are several apparitions that are seen throughout the cemetery. People sometimes see an old woman in the cemetery who disappears when approached. When it snows, people sometimes see the apparition of an older woman walking barefoot through the snow. Sometimes, people who enter the cemetery find bare footprints in the fresh snow and question why anyone would walk in the freezing snow in their bare feet.

Another menacing figure who is seen throughout the cemetery is known as the “shadow man.” Many people see an imposing shadowy figure of a man who instantly vanishes upon being sighted.

visiting

The cemetery is open 9 a.m.–5 p.m. daily. This means that while you can enter the cemetery and search for the apparitions during the day, you will have to search the cemetery from outside the gates to watch for the hide-and-go-seek lights at night. The best time to search for the old woman apparition is early in the morning after a fresh snow has fallen the night before.