These Are The Scariest Graveyards In Illinois, Survey Says

Residents may shudder at the thought of being alone after dark at three Illinois cemeteries shrouded in lore and legend, according to a survey conducted in time for Halloween.

Choice Mutual, a life insurance company that specializes in funeral and burial policies, asked 3,004 Americans a single question: “Which graveyard would you be least prepared to visit alone at night?”

The survey found 150 graveyards around the country that people refuse to enter or even detour around at night, whether they believe or dismiss as myth the stories of ghostly figures, whispers between crypts, and other unexplained occurrences.

The scariest graveyards in Illinois are:

• Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago, ranked No. 14. Founded in 1859, the 350-acre Rosehill Cemetery is the largest — and one of the older — cemeteries in the city of Chicago. "Coming through the towering stone gates is like entering another dimension, a place where the urban world gets left behind. The presence of deer prancing between graves, nibbling the grass and memorial flowers adds to Rosehill's surreal beauty. Perhaps that's part of what makes the cemetery so haunting. It’s a world outside the world within the city," wrote HorrorObsessive.com in 2023.
• Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, Midlothian, ranked No. 57. With the first burial occurring here in around 1834, it's the oldest cemetery in Cook County. "The super creepy atmosphere is only completed by dozens of ghostly sightings. From a lady in a white dress who shows up in photographs to a disappearing farm house and more, this little graveyard makes for quite a haunting hotspot," writes GhostCityTours.com. RELATED: Bachelor's Grove — Desecrated Cemetery's Haunts Are Alive And Well
• Springdale Cemetery, Peoria, ranked No. 138. The large, 254-acre cemetery, which dates back to 1855, has nearly 80,000 graves. "In the middle of this cemetery is a large grave site only accessible by foot that some call the Witch's Circle. You must walk through a path surrounded by a savannah until you stumble across the grave marked A.S. Cole. The family was once one of the richest in Illinois, having been alcohol manufacturers, but now their family name is associated with witchcraft. The family itself is innocent, but the circle has been rumored to be the site of many witch gatherings for decades now," writes AtlasObscura.com.

The 10 scariest graveyards are:

1. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York
2. Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles
3. Boothill Graveyard, Tombstone, Arizona
4. St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans
5. Salem Cemetery, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
6. Gettysburg National Cemetery, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
7. Pine Hill Cemetery, also known as Blood Cemetery, Hollis, New Hampshire
8. Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Cemetery, Weston, West Virginia
9. Old City Cemetery, also known as Historic City Cemetery, Sacramento, California
10. Old Hill Burying Ground, Concord, Massachusetts

The survey authors said the most-dreaded cemeteries tended to be Colonial-era and church graveyards in the Northeast, with New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania appearing multiple times in the top 30.

Among other observations by the authors of the survey:

– Mass burial grounds at crucial and exceptionally bloody Civil War battlefields such as Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, Shiloh in Tennessee, and Vicksburg in Mississippi also ranked high.

– There are a couple of graveyards in the Old West with a particularly desolate feel, according to the survey: Tombstone’s Boothill Graveyard in Arizona, where outlaws who died in the O.K. Corral gunfight are buried, and Tonopah Cemetery in Nevada, a monument to the resilience and tenacity of the pioneers and miners who settled in the harsh desert.

Choice Mutual said the survey sample was designed to reflect balance across age, gender and geography. National population benchmarks were established using internal data and a two-step process: stratified sampling and post-stratification weighting.

RELATED: Ghosts Of Graceland: Chicago Cemetery Filled With Haunting Tales