A full narrative history section
There are no road signs that point the way to Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, which is quietly nestled in the Rubio Woods Forest Preserve. There is only a small dirt path that winds its way through the forest, eventually stopping in front of what many believe is one of the nation's most haunted cemeteries.
The resting place of about 150 people, Bachelor's Grove cemetery is just one acre in size and is named for the unusually large number of single men buried there. The first burial was in 1844 and the last (an interment of ashes) was in 1989. The last recorded body buried there was in 1965.
The land surrounding Bachelors Grove Cemetery was originally settled by English homesteaders who relocated to the area from New England, including Stephen Rexford, arguably the most well known of the first wave of Anglo settlers, around 1833. Ursula Bielski, author of "Chicago Haunts," asserts the actual cemetery was originally named the Everdon Cemetery after the original holder of the property title, Samuel Everdon. The site saw its first official burials around 1840 and contains 82 plots, many of which were never sold or used. Burials, however, possibly go back as far as 1834, when German immigrant workers killed while working on the Illinois and Michigan Canal were reportedly laid to rest at the site. The site is often reported to have been a dumping ground for victims of Chicago's organized crime families of the 1920s and 1930s, but no evidence of this has been proven.
