The Haunted Gypsy Graveyard
Haunted houses, legends, evil spirits, ghosts, orbs and all manner of life after death fill the Halloween season. But many Chicagoans are bored with the same old haunts—Bachelor’s Grove, Resurrection Cemetery, Hull House and the site of the Englewood home of H.H. Holmes. Here’s a new one: In 1820, the townspeople of a town in Northwest Indiana heard tales of Gypsies performing pagan rituals using strange chants and charms. When an influenza-type plague hit the town, it was blamed on the Gypsies. Even though they were also suffering from it, they were quarantined and driven from their camp. But as they left, the story goes, the Romany cursed the town and the graveyard. For decades, visitors to the cemetery have spoken of their shoes being covered with blood and seeing ghosts wearing Mardi Gras-type beads wandering the area. Ghost hunters talk of statues crying, dogs barking, cold pockets and orbs.
South East Grove Cemetery, Crown Point, Indiana
Best of Chicago 2017
