Rosehill Cemetery: Chicago's Largest Graveyard

Visitations creator Scott Larson visiting Rosehill Cemetery

The  cemetery in Visitations where the characters of the story reside is called Gracehill. Billed as Chicago's oldest, Gracehill Cemetery is fictional. It's based on a combination of several burial grounds in the city. One of the inspirations for the graveyard is Rosehill Cemetery on Chicago's North Side.

Rosehill Cemetery has a Civil War section that made it into the first issue of Visitations

Rosehill was founded in1859. The largest cemetery in Chicago, it encompasses the  neighborhoods of Lincoln Square, Andersonville and Edgewater. The area had been known as Roe's Hill after farmer Hiram Roe, who had owned the land. Far from the city limits of the time ( Chicago ended at Fullerton Avenue, several miles south of where it does now), and being the highest elevation of the area ( and of current Chicago) the cemetery was intended to be the burial ground of the diseased bodies of the victims of typhoid and cholera epidemics.

Rosehill was designed to be a state of the art, landscaped memorial park. It became a popular spot for picnics and parties in the late 19th Century. So much so that an issue arose for the administrators of the graveyard: too many people were showing up on the weekends. Visitors to Rosehill (and it's sister burial ground, Graceland Cemetery) were required to prove they had someone interned there before being let in.

Rosehill has a number of famous Chicagoans buried within it's gates. The cemetery is the final resting place for a number of notable figures such as Chicago Mayors John Charles Haines,  George Bell Swift, Harvey Doolittle Colvin, Levi Boone, Buckner Stith Morris and Roswell B. Mason. Business magnates are residents,  including  Oscar Mayer, Darius Miller, George Joseph Schmitt, Richard Warren Sears, and John G. Shedd. Numerous architects, sports figures, inventors, gangsters and Congressmen are also within it's walls. There is even a survivor of the Titanic Disaster.

My first encounter with Rosehill was when I was 12 years old. Every year on Memorial Day the cemetery hosts a military parade. My dad and I attended it. Afterwards we stopped by his grandfather's grave which is located near the gates at Western Ave.  When we moved into our house a couple of years later, Rosehill was practically in our front yard  - a half a block away on Belmorial Avenue. To me, it's the neighborhood graveyard.

Scenes from Rosehill's annual Memorial Day celebration

Rosehill Cemetery is also rumored to be one of the most haunted places in the city. Legends of Richard Warren Sears stalking the graveyard, the boy from the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder being seen, memorial statues disappearing in fog and the sounds of screams and chains rattling through the night are but a few tales attached to it. The Mausoleum is a ghost hunter's paradise because of the EVP recordings there.

Rosehill's very haunted Mausoleum

Frances Pierce and daughter who died on the same day. They disappear from
this glass case when it fogs up on the anniversary of their deaths.

Lulu Fellows who people have heard crying as well as experiencing the smell of
roses during the winter at her gravesite. The bottom of the monument is filled
with money which visitors have slipped into the glass case.

The stories I find most interesting are not what happens inside Rosehill, but what occurs beyond it's walls. Multiple houses surrounding the graveyard are rumored to be  haunted as is the Fireside Restaurant on Ravenswood Avenue. Apparitions on Western Avenue - including in the new forest preserve the city of Chicago built in an area that used to be part of the cemetery-  and on Peterson Avenue. In addition to this Rosehill was part of the infamous "Clown Hauntings" from a few years ago.

 Clown sighting at Rosehill Cemetery in 2015. He climbed the main gate on
Ravenswood Avenue in front of witnesses and disappeared into the graveyard.

The abandoned caretaker house for Rosehill Cemetery.

The house place a part in Visitations as the home of Bradley Walker.

Belief as to whether or not Rosehill Cemetery is haunted is up to the individual. However, it's an interesting place to visit and is an important part of Chicago history. Visiting this graveyard is highly recommended. Just beware of who you may meet while there...

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