Hadley Cemetery Investigation

Messenger Woods is one of Will County ’s oldest and most unique forest preserves.  Here, visitors can enjoy one of the few remaining forests in northeastern Illinois that have not been altered by grazing, cutting, farming or development. The nature preserve is a 407-acre natural area owned by the Will Cook Forest Preserve District.

Considered a high-quality, old-grove forest, Messenger Woods has oak uplands and rich maple bottom lands on a rolling glacial hill terrain.  Spring Creek, which runs through the preserve, has but several steep ravines.  Visitors can hike or ski along two miles of looped trails that meander through this scenic preserve.  

Messenger Woods is known throughout the region for its abundance of Spring wild flowers that carpet the forest floor.  Watch the numerous nature photographers preach over their camera to capture the blue-eyed Mary, large-flowered trillium, wild geranium and hepatica in bloom.  The biggest attraction is the Virginia bluebells, far more appear at Messenger Woods over a few fleeting weeks in April and May than anywhere else in Will County .  The rare Cooper’s hawk and state-endangered red-shouldered hawk nest annually in the preserve.  

The small cemetery itself is not easy to find and is a bit off the road.  While trying to research additional information regarding the cemetery, local officials that I had contacted through websites knew nothing about the graveyard and, in fact, weren’t even aware that such a place even existed.  Believe me, this is not a page from the Twilight Zone because I’ve been there personally myself on several occasions.

Address: 13753 W. Chicago Bloomington Trail, Homer Glen, IL 60491

Hauntings: On the sinister side there have been reports of Satanism and Witchcraft (though the two are quite widely different) in the area for many years.  There is also an unsubstantiated report that a young girl accidentally drove her car off a high cliff and that she now haunts the area.  Other stories include murders that have occurred in the woods themselves where the unfortunate victims were found hanging from trees by police and forest rangers.  

What initially sparked my interest were the “alleged murders” and reports that an old gravestone existed on the far side of the cemetery which supposedly contained the remains of an actual witch who was killed and buried in the cemetery.  The grave was allegedly not part of the consecrated ground and soon after she was buried, townsfolk planted briars and thorn bushes on and near her grave, “to keep her soul in the ground.”  

We were able to find this alleged witches grave however the names and dates are so badly worn, it’s almost impossible to make anything out.  Was that the grave of an actual witch killed in the middle of the last century?  

There are reports of strange balls of light that would float and waft through the cemetery at night.  When police would be called to investigate, they would never find any trespassers around who might have been the source of these ghost lights. When driving past people have reported hearing screams and seeing strange shadows flit across the road in front of their car.

The Ghost Research Society investigated Hadley Cemetery on May 25, 2022 team members included: Paul Adams and Dale Kaczmarek.

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Equipment used: Only hand-held equipment was deployed such as digital recorders and cameras, cellphone cameras and the ParaTek app on a cellphone.

Experiments performed: A single ParaTek app session was conducted inside the cemetery.

Personal encounters:

Dale Kaczmarek: It was a peaceful day with some light wind that didn’t affect the digital recorder much. We worked undisturbed with the exception of a rooster crowing in the distance.

A lot of names came through; some that were quite old such as Harriet, Layla, Gabrielle and Arianna – all female.  The name Mary was also emitted from the device and when we looked closely around us, there indeed was a grave with the name Mary on it; Mary H. Hendorf. (Granted the name Mary is pretty common though.)

Evidence collected: 

Mary Hadley.MP4 – while conducting a ParaTek app session near a row of Hendorf tombstones, the device blurted out, “Mary.” (Near to us was a tombstone with the name Mary H. Hendorf.)

Words spoken on the ParaTek app: third, school, first, Harriet, knit, Layla, Mary, forever, Gabrielle, telepathy, reel, saint, saint, next, raise, bad, teenager, gender, necessary, voices, reach, tail, otter, five, say, get, Arianna, two, Pete, eat, wench, sat, breathing, hurting & inner.

Conclusions: We didn’t get much in the way of intelligent responses but some interesting words did come through like saint twice in a row, and wench considering that the old legend of this cemetery is that a witch was allegedly buried under a briar bush near the back of the cemetery.

This cemetery deserves another investigation sometime in the future.