Graceland Cemetery's Haunted Graves
Chicago is full of cemeteries both large and small, but no matter the size, most likely some of the graves in those cemeteries are haunted. Here are the haunted graves of the cemeteries on the North Side of Chicago and the stories behind them.Graceland Cemetery didn't yet exist at the time its oldest inhabits died. That's because many of them were buried in the old Chicago City Cemetery near downtown. But in 1870, concerns over water contamination and epidemics resulted in the moving the burials from where Lincoln Park is now and to many cemeteries on the north side of town. Graceland Cemetery, located at 4100 North Clark Street, began in 1860 and at 120 acres, it's one of Chicago's largest and most beautiful cemeteries. Graceland is the home of many well known people, including Marshall Field, Allan Pinkerton, George Pullman, and Phillip D. Armour, just to name a few. But it's the grave of Dexter Graves which gives its onlookers unpleasant pause. That's because on top of his final resting place there stands a bronze memorial statue named Eternal Silence, designed by renown sculptor Lorado Taft. Graves was a hotel owner and early settler of Chicago. Why he chose such a foreboding and dark memorial is anyone's guess, unless maybe he was a Cubs fan. As if the creepiness it instills in spectators is not enough, the Statue of Death, as it's commonly referred to, has its own legend surrounding it. To gaze into the face of the statue is to catch a glimpse of your own death to come, or so says the folk stories. Over the years the once all black statue has worn down to the green metal underneath so that the hidden face is the only part still dark, its eyes the darkest of all for those who dare gaze into them.
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