Ghosts of the haunted Greenwood Cemetery

 Each cemetery in itself brings back memories of various eerie events and arouses horror, but some are true record holders in this respect. One of the most haunted places in the Midwest of the United States, and who knows, maybe in the whole world, is the Greenwood Cemetery in the southern end of Decatur. Decatur is a small city in the United States, in Macon County, in the central part of the state of Illinois. According to witnesses, things happen at the Greenwood Cemetery that cannot be rationally explained in any way. Old Greenwood Cemetery is scary even without its ghosts.

No one knows exactly when this place began to be used for burial, but the official dedication and approval of Greenwood Cemetery took place in 1857. The first graves began to appear here in the 1820s. There are accounts of a tragic event from the spring of 1828. A group of settlers illegally producing moonshine from corn on the Sangamon River came into conflict with Indians who happened to be in the area. The moonshiners shot the Indians in the nearby woods and, to avoid revenge from their fellow countrymen and to conceal their crime, buried the bodies in a shallow ravine on the hillside and covered the grave with stones.

A dozen or so years later, runaway slaves who had been killed were secretly buried there. The first mentions of official funerals date back to 1840, before the cemetery area was formally incorporated into the city limits in March 1857. Initially, not only funerals were held there, but also picnics. In the cemetery, you could see carriages and city residents walking in their best clothes along the alleys between the graves. This picturesquely situated spot among the hills was even called the "most beautiful town of the dead."

As it turned out, in the area where Greenwood Cemetery is now located, the Indians - the native inhabitants of these lands - had been burying their dead for centuries. They usually held funerals in special places that were connected to the afterlife, to make it easier for the spirits of the dead to pass to the other world. The white colonists disturbed the burial mounds, and thus disturbed the peace of the Indians resting here.

After about a hundred years, in the first half of the 20th century, Greenwood Cemetery began to decline. The area began to overgrow, murders and grave robberies occurred in the cemetery. When a flood washed away part of the cemetery, the remains of the deceased were moved to another place. It was then that the first stories about ghosts, misty figures and luminous balls appeared, believed to be the lost souls of people whose graves had long ago been washed away by the water. Over the years, a lot of stories have accumulated around Greenwood Cemetery in Decatur, which go far beyond the accepted boundaries of rational thought.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a mausoleum was founded at the Greenwood Cemetery, where distinguished citizens of the city found their eternal rest. A long structure was erected with two pairs of iron gates and turrets on the corners. Urns with the ashes of the deceased were placed in side niches. For unexplained reasons, this representative structure in the cemetery began to quickly fall apart. Gradually, the building turned into ruins, and since the authorities refused to renovate it, the urns were moved to another place, and the building was demolished in 1967. Today, only a platform with the remains of the foundations remains of the mausoleum.

There would be nothing remarkable about the existence of ruins if not for the fact that visitors to the place often hear a strange echo, as if whispering and muffled voices. In the fall of 1998, a group of tourists visiting the Greenwood Cemetery found themselves on the site of the former mausoleum, and then everyone suddenly felt a sharp drop in air temperature. It became so cold that you could see steam from their breath. After leaving this place, everyone felt warm again.

Greenwood Cemetery sometimes hosts eerie funeral processions. Decatur resident Ann Cummings was visiting her father's grave one day when she saw a woman standing on a hill near a tree, dressed in a long black dress, holding a bouquet of yellow flowers. She turned around for a moment, and when she looked back at the stranger, there was no one under the tree.  

Another time, a few workers mowing the grass in the cemetery noticed a funeral procession passing by. When they decided to get closer and see who was buried there, it turned out that there was no living soul around.

Another witness, who had watched the procession through the cemetery, followed it to the top of the hill, and when he got there, it turned out that there was no one there. There was, however, a tombstone, and from the inscription on it, it appeared that the woman buried under it was 60 years ago, on the same day.

One day, one of the cemetery workers noticed a funeral procession with cars styled in the 1940s. He wondered who the deceased vintage car enthusiast was, but it turned out that no funeral was planned for that day.

The most famous haunted area is the section of graves from the Civil War. During the war between the North and South (1861-1865), prison trains often passed through the city of Decatur, carrying Confederate soldiers to camps. One such train contained several men who died of yellow fever during the journey. The railroad line ran close to the cemetery, so a grave was quickly dug in the hillside and the dead were buried. Since this was done in such a hurry, it is said that some of these soldiers may still be alive.

Many people say that soldiers still walk the hills of Greenwood Cemetery, dressed in bloody uniforms, hiding behind the tombstones. One visitor to the cemetery saw a man standing among the tombstones one day. The stranger beckoned him over. He was wearing a torn uniform and seemed very lost. "Can you help me?" the man in uniform asked. "Where am I?" The tourist looked at him closely and saw fear in his eyes. A chill ran down his spine when the soldier quietly added, "I just want to go home," and then disappeared.

The ghost of a girl named Maggy is said to often play on her grave. Visitors to the cemetery bring her toys and candy. The child's ghost sometimes thanks her and laughs. A local woman once came to a funeral of a loved one with a child. Suddenly, an unknown girl approached her and asked if she could play with her son so he wouldn't get bored during the ceremony. The mother agreed, but asked the little girl what her name was. "Maggy," the girl replied. And when asked where her parents were, she replied, "They haven't come to my grave for a long time."

There is a well-known story of a girl from the Greenwood area, concerning events from the 1930s. A young man from Decatur was involved in illegal alcohol trafficking. While trying to secretly pass on a batch of whiskey bottles to a buyer, he was attacked by members of a rival group of dealers. The attackers killed the boy and threw him into the river. Local fishermen fished the body out of the water, and the fiancée of the unfortunate smuggler, when she learned of his death, fell into despair and ran away from home.

Her body was soon found floating in the river in the same place where her fiancé was found. The girl drowned, unable to live without her beloved. She was buried in her wedding dress. Since she had committed suicide, a grave was dug for her on the hill. From then on, the girl in the white dress was seen in this place more than once. In her hand, she always held a handkerchief, with which she wiped her fiancé's tears.

Greenwood Cemetery is associated with the legend of the "Devil's Chair". According to the belief, if someone sits in this chair at a certain time, they can make a deal with the devil. For a period of seven years, they will have everything they want, but after the agreement expires, the devil comes to take their soul. It is said that those who sit in the Devil's Chair hear ghosts, see the devil, and sometimes are even able to go back in time.

What is this rather peculiar seat? The strange graveyard chairs began appearing in Greenwood Cemetery in the 19th century, and at least at first they had no macabre connotations. They were simply “mourning chairs” for people visiting the graves of loved ones. Due to vandalism, there are now very few of these chairs left. Some say the chairs bring good luck to those who sit on them, others say bad luck. Anyone can take a chance and sit in the devil’s chair, or – with caution – stand to the side.