The Lore of Bachelor's Grove Cemetery - The Disappearing House
One of the more interesting bits of lore surrounding Bachelor's Grove Cemetery is the existence of a floating house. Never seen in the same spot twice, is there a spectral home floating around the graveyard, or is there a perfectly logical explanation for this phantom phenomenon?
Watch the wrap-up video here.
The Lore
Depending on the video you see or book you read, the disappearing house in Bachelor's Grove has some slight variations, but the basics are simple: a one- or two-story home is seen by a cemetery visitor. When they look to see it again, it's vanished. It is often described as having a light in a window and a fog-like mist may or may not appear with it. Reports of seeing the house date back as far as the 1950s with most of the stories happening during the 1960s and 1970s but as recent as 2015.
Quick side note - If you saw day 1 of my research, you know two of my books contain the same exact information. The publisher is the same and simply reprinted the info in a new book under a different name. To avoid confusion, if I state books by name, it will be Haunted America as it was published before The Book of Mysteries of the Unexplained. Again, the info is exactly the same for this bit of lore. Haunted Heartland is its own book and was published prior to either of the other books.
There are a few different descriptions of the house by those who have seen it. So let's see what each source has to say about the disappearing house.
Haunted Heartland describes the house as having a porch swing and a large, wooden porch. It is two stories, vaguely Victorian in style, and has a faint light that can be seen through the curtains. According to this book, published first in 1985 and reprinted in 1992 (just for reference with the information they provide), no house had ever been built on the land.
Haunted America simply says it is a two-story home that slowly fades away.
Acorn Public Library hosted the online event Bachelor's Grove: A Study in Haunting and Folklore and they claim people see a one- or two-story white farmhouse with a light in one window. Per their presentation, this house doesn't match any known homesite foundations and is consistently reported in different locations around the woods.
Illinois Haunted Houses has a page dedicated to the cemetery and while they do not mention the house, one of the user comments does. This unknown visitor shares a rather interesting and fairly recent sighting of the disappearing house as well as battery/device drain, light orbs, and moving vines. It sounds a bit more fantastical than other accounts, but that's not to say this person didn't see something. I am a bit sad they did not go into more detail on the house or orbs they saw.
Bachelors Grove Cemetery & Settlement Research Center (BGCSRC) has, by far, the best information on the history and paranormal history of Bachelor's Grove Cemetery. They have a paranormal map marking various spooky sightings, YouTube channel with a playlist of paranormal information and experiences, and a PDF of Bachelor's Grove Paranormal Research Guide by Pete Crapia, a compiled book of everything you can think of related to the paranormal and the cemetery, including a section on our disappearing house. I highly suggest reading the entire book if the cemetery interests you. But I am getting lost in the excitement over reading again...
The guide gives more detail about what the house reportedly looks like. It appears to be from the 1850-1890s and a "vintage and Victorian-style". (I do not know if vintage and Victorian are the same thing or not. Housing style outside of Cape Cod and ranch always confused me.) It mentions the light in the window and porch swing, but also adds some see wooden pillars near the porch and/or a picket fence with the house. Additionally, the guide provides a link to the only two known sketches of the house. They are a bit pixelated, but you can clearly see the house style. There is also an aerial photo of an unknown structure/shadow taken in 1951. I am sharing the link but there really isn't much to get excited over as you could be looking at just about anything in this image.
BGCSRC has a forum for people to ask questions, post experiences, and the like. One of the users submitted their stories of multiple experiences, including seeing the disappearing house. Arvo says the house he saw was brown, had a covered porch, and candles in the window. He also reported that the closer he walked towards the house, the distance between him and it stayed the same. This is another common report with the house. It either fades away or never gets closer. Spooky. Like so many others, Arvo later went back to look for the house but could never find it.
The house goes by several names, including "Floating House" which seems to come from the fact people see it in various locations. It "floats" around the cemetery rather than appearing in one spot time and time again.
Reports of sightings started in the 1950s and do continue through modern times, but the bulk of the sightings seem to be from the 1960s and 1970s.
The Facts
Haunted Heartland states that no homes were built on the property, but we know now that this isn't the case. In fact, there is one home that was still known to be standing in the mid-1940s and may have been standing in some form through the 1960s. The Schmidt family lived around/next to the cemetery in the 1890s and maintained residency through at least 1914, based on photos. Between reading a few different sources, I at first thought the house photographed in the 1890s was the same as the one in 1914 but after reading a bit more and looking good and hard at roof lines, building structure, and mature trees, it is two different homes or absolutely one heck of a renovation that I am not entirely sure they would have done while adding on. But that's cool though because it tells us multiple homes sat in the area. Additionally, surveys, plat maps, home foundations, and more prove there were once additional homes in that exact area, in and around Bachelor's Grove Cemetery. The site MysteriousChicago.com makes a great point about the 1914 photograph - depending on how you would view the house, you might see it as one-story or two. Which makes me think of the story from the BGCSRC forum and the house appearing brown. Arvo didn't say how many stories it was, but if you saw it from the side with mostly roof showing and a screened porch, at night, it may have enough shadowing to appear brown. This could be the Lily's brain working overtime and on too much coffee, but I don't know. My gut tells me this feels right. And y'all know I don't say that much, especially when it comes to experiences without proof.
BUT!!! We also have at least one more potential real-life property for the disappearing house. A 1928 plat shows there was a 1-story frame structure on the property next to the cemetery. Now, by next to, I mean the lot sharing a property line, but the structure itself is on the opposite side next to the other property line. This home was once owned by Christ Boehm and is in the area people saw the disappearing house in during the 1970s.
It is thought that some people saw these structures as kids/teens while they were still standing and years later were unable to find them again as they had been demolished. This works for some cases but not more recent accounts where the houses were already known to be torn down.
According to the Bachelor's Grove Paranormal Research Guide, documents have recently been donated/discovered that give more information on these properties. You never know, they may hold information about other structures on and around cemetery grounds.
A quick key feature I want to mention as well is the pond and creek by the cemetery. As the disappearing house has been associated with mist/fog at times and with lit windows and occasional orbs, we should take into consideration that a creek or pond might play in a paranormal sighting. Fog, reflections, time of day, weather, lightning bugs, and ignis fatuus (AKA will-o'-the-wisp) could all be natural causes for what people are seeing. And, because it must be said, drugs and alcohol could play a role in sightings from time to time as well. 😂
Lily's Thoughts
As the disappearing house doesn't come with a lot beyond sketches and stories being retold years later, it is very hard to prove it's really a ghost house and not just people who saw a real house only to search the wrong area years later or the correct area but the house was already demolished. It's also hard to not say it's just people in a cemetery after dark letting their minds and eyes get the better of them. I know looking at photos on the BGCSRC website, sometime the trees and pond made me look twice. But with so many accounts over the years, it's also hard to say it's all fake or tricks of the eye, even if some retellings are more movie-inspired than others.
Until next time, lore lovers, stay spooky💖
~Lily
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Sources
From Lily's Library
Scott, B., & Norman, M. (1992). Chapter I. Illinois. In Haunted Heartland (p. 4). Fall River Press.
Publications International, Ltd. (2022). Bachelor’s Grove: America’s Most Haunted Cemetery. In The Book of Mysteries of the Unexplained (pp. 306–308). Publications International, Ltd.
Publications International, Ltd. (Ed.). (2011). Bachelor’s Grove: America’s Most Haunted Cemetery? In Haunted America: Terrifying Tales of Paranormal Phenomena (pp. 340–341). Publications International, Ltd.
Other Sources
Acorn Public Library. (2021). Bachelor’s Grove: A Study in Hauntings and Folklore. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1565856333749503.
BachelorsGrove. (2019, June 1). Bachelors Grove Cemetery - Phantom House Witness - June 2019. YouTube. https://youtu.be/u4x09AUWE8Y
BachelorsGrove. (2021a, July 1). Bachelors Grove Cemetery - Phantom House Witness - 1970s. YouTube. https://youtu.be/nmkC3v1n2sg
BachelorsGrove. (2021b, July 22). Bachelors Grove Cemetery - Phantom House Witness - Late 1970s. YouTube. https://youtu.be/9dYJWW1wa9Y
Crapia, P. (2016). Bachelors Grove Cemetery & Settlement Research Center. https://www.bachelorsgrove.com/home
Crapia, P. (2023). Bachelors Grove Paranormal Research Guide.
* Quick source links to images and documents mentioned in Crapia's guide:
* 1951 Aerial Image. (1951). Retrieved from https://photos.app.goo.gl/d2xmV7Jp2p4qkbu57.
* Disappearing House Sketches. (1985). Retrieved from https://photos.app.goo.gl/gyNkL9Km8t42tKkcA.
* Plat of Survey - Christ Boehm - 1928. (1928). Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_e4qtz6hlESllFOUp5QmxpZWs/view?usp=sharing.
* Schmidt House - 1890s. (1890s). Retrieved from https://photos.app.goo.gl/azdDkoKcZd6amFPM9.
* Schmidt House - 1914. (1914). Retrieved from https://photos.app.goo.gl/uwYqNeLTg27HnaVR9.
Davidson, E. (n.d.). Erin Davidson’s review of The Haunted Bachelors Grove Cemetery in Midlothian, Illinois. Haunted Illinois. https://www.hauntedillinois.com/realhauntedplaces/bachelors-grove.php
Flynn, C. (2013, October 1). Small cemetery in woods reveals history in new exhibit. The Beverly Review. https://www.beverlyreview.net/news/community_news/article_409c2ac4-2aa2-11e3-9504-001a4bcf6878.html
Illinois’s Halloween Entertainment Guide. (2015, August 17). Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery. Illinois Haunted Houses. https://www.illinoishauntedhouses.com/real-haunt/bachelors-grove-cemetery.html
Selzer, A. (2015, November 16). Is this the vanishing house of Bachelor’s Grove? Mysterious Chicago. https://mysteriouschicago.com/is-this-the-vanishing-house-of-bachelors-grove/
Zylo, A. (2021, October 11). My experiences in Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery. Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery Forum. https://groups.google.com/g/bachelors-grove-cemetery/c/U4jR0t3OOs4
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