Was that a voice or maybe it was just the wind? Is that just the rustling of trees or could that be something else? This is one of those places where the line between the living and the dead gets blurred as restless spirits keep watch.
The church, St. James at Sag Bridge occupies the bluffs over Archer Avenue near the junction of the Calumet Sag Channel and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Today, the church is hidden amongst the Forest Preserves but the original, log cabin church was built on this land in the 1830s by Irish workers digging the I&M canal. Before that it was the site of a French Fort and before that it was on a trail used by Native Americans.
The cemetery here shows its age with crumbling stones that are melting into the natural scenery.
Legend has it that one of the priests’ assistants and a housemaid had fallen in love. As they snuck off to elope, their carriage overturned killing them both. They were buried in unmarked graves in the cemetery. Now, on cold nights, visitors witness a figure of a woman entering a spectral carriage that gallops down the path and vanishes before it reaches Archer Avenue.
In the 1970s on the Friday after Thanksgiving, a cook county sheriff deputy was on patrol in the area at 2:30am. He saw figures moving around the grounds of the church so he went to investigate. The deputy later described seeing 8 or 9 robed figures moving in unison up the fill through the cemetery. He chased them down but when he reached the church at the top of the hill, the figures were gone. To this day, cemetery visitors hear the chanting of monks echoing through the trees and claim to see the hooded figures standing in the distance watching from afar.
Other stories include that of a phantom black stallion galloping across the churchyard, demonic faces staring out of church windows, and blue orbs moving across the night.
If you visit St. James on the Sag Bridge Cemetery, leave before the sets because as the shadows grow, the secrets hidden within refuse to be forgotten. The whispers of the wind intertwine with the faint echoes of forgotten souls. Is that just the rustling of trees or could that be something else?
Sources
Dale Kaczmarek, St. James Sag Church & Cemetery (Monk's Castle) [ Ссылка ]
Lekas, Gerry. Where the Tour Buses Don’t Go. Black Lyon Publishing, 2020.
Jeff Morris and Vince Sheilds, Chicago Haunted Handbook
