Spooky Stories from Elgin, IL. was an October feature of stories from Elgin residents about unusual happenings, spooky events or an other-worldly resident that might still be hanging around. In most of these stories names and locations have been omitted or changed to protect the privacy of still living residents and their homes.
These stories are meant to provide a safe and fun scare.
Please enjoy and feel free to share!
S always believed that as a kid she was a bit weird & eccentric.
She grew up in an old Elgin house and the seemingly ancient surroundings would make her imagination run wild with what she later told herself were make believe stories of people & strange happenings that thrilled, delighted & occasionally unnerved her.
It wasn’t until a high school history assignment though, that she came to understand that maybe it wasn’t JUST an active imagination fueling her stories.
The assignment was to do a research project on a local building or space that was at least 100 years old.
S immediately thought of her own home. It was really old - like from-when-the-city-began old. She felt excited thinking about what she may discover about this historic, yet so familiar space. Her house had always intrigued her with its nooks & crannies & random rooms that no longer made sense in the modern world, but would spark a torrent of stories in her young mind.
It only took a quick visit to the local library to discover that Elgin is very a well-documented city. Learning about her home would be an extremely easy task!
Built in 1883, by the famed Elgin brick mason Andrew Magnus, S suddenly had all these new words to help her describe the deep history she had always felt in the home. Magnus, who had built her house as his own residence, had also built many early Elgin homes.
(Fun fact; he and his family still remain in Elgin, in the Bluff City Cemetery Section 7, Lot 3.)
As she continued her research, she came upon something that made the little hairs on her neck stand on end. As it turns out, the ground her home was built upon was a burial ground.
Before Elgin was a city, when Native people still called the banks of the Fox River home, some of this land was used to lay their loved ones to rest. Tragedies & atrocities committed against the Natives people torn them from their homes, leaving the land open for new settlers to arrive. When they did, they continued to add to existing burial sites until they established their own. Native people, Civil War soldiers, & early settlers were all laid to rest on the same land her childhood home now stood.
This was not all. As S continued reading she learned that eventually the Channing Cemetery, also known as “Old Cem”, was established. The bodies were moved, and later moved AGAIN to their final resting place in Bluff City Cemetery.
Memories of her time at Channing Elementary - built atop “Old Cem” jumped into her mind. In 1999 an archeological dig found 8 graves still on the property. Today It’s estimated that more bodies remain under the school & the grounds of Channing Park.
‘If this is the case for the property of a SCHOOL’, S reasoned, ‘I couldn’t even imagine how many bodies are still under my house!’
As S stared at the information on the pages in a bit of a shock, a short phrase stood out; “Civil War burial ground”.
It was then that it all started clicking in place. A memory of a soldier with an old, grey cap & an old riffle he’d hold at his side, guarding her & her sister’s bedroom at night when she was a very little girl floated into her mind. The memory was like looking through a frosted window - barely there, but there. She hadn’t actually believed it was a real memory until that very moment.
Being a good researcher though, S decided to check it out with the only person she knew who might be able to corroborate her story.
Her sister, M.
“Oh, HIM??” M stated when S brought up the subject of the old civil war soldier ghost.
M said he was never a bad presence, more of a protective one, showing up in the night, silently standing guard.
M was the older of the pair, & had a solid memory of the event. She told S about how the solider’s presence unsettled her little sister. How as a little girl, S would talk in the night about the solider just outside their door. M would try to calm her, telling her “don’t worry, nothing is there” all the while watching the ghostly figure stand guard.
And then, as they got older, the solider disappeared. It was as if his assignment had been completed and he was released to move on to a new post.
Occasionally odd things still occur at their childhood home where their parents still live. But the solider is gone.
At least for now.
