An Overgrown Family Cemetery in an Illinois Woods, Where the Stones Are Going Missing

I heard about this place being right next to a lake, and I was told there were tombstones. I was even shown pictures of them next to the water. I don’t remember who sent them, so I can’t show them to you.

The exact location stays off this page. I went down there and the lake side was really flooded, so there was no way I could find any tombstones. Scattered around were a bunch of dead animal bones. It’s kind of creepy, and I don’t think I’m allowed to show that, so I headed for the cemetery instead.

What we found

Somebody had cleared a path through the woods and up to the cemetery. Down below there were fallen trees with some trash and a lot of beer bottles, so people have been having parties down here.

The cemetery wasn’t on Google. I don’t know if it was a private cemetery that was never labeled, or if it’s just old and fell off the maps. The first things you see are three very tall tombstones. One has decorative detail at the bottom. It’s a complete stone with another stone on top of it and a third stone on top of that with a crown finish. There’s a lot of moss on it, and it has definitely seen better days.

One stone is harder to read in person than on camera. It has the person’s name along with a date, December 4th of 1902, then a saying about death and the words my son. I’m guessing this was a private cemetery.

Another little stone says it died in 1891, but you can’t even read the name anymore. One is easier to read from the side, with the name and five stones stacked up, and the top one is broken. Three of these look like very expensive headstones. In the video I asked whether you call these tombstones or headstones. I think they’re headstones.

Some stones have no name on them at all, just two little pieces, and another piece that might have been the top of one. A few trees have pink ribbons around them. I’m not sure what that means, but it might be trees they’re planning on getting rid of.

Farther back there’s a stone that says our beloved mother, then wife of and what I assume is the man’s name. I couldn’t make out anything else. Look at how overgrown this place is. The cemetery has almost been forgotten.

Over here is the base to one stone and the base to another, but the stones are gone. One is missing entirely and half of another is missing too. Then I noticed writing on a piece that was the top of one of them. It’s hard to make out, but one side looks like it says born in 1812, maybe, with 1876 probably the death date. There’s also a six foot piece lying down next to it.

Looking the other way I found three more stones just kind of hidden away, one of them broken in half, all very hard to read. I walked farther and didn’t see any signs of other tombstones anywhere else. I think this is a very small cemetery. It looks like it started up where I first found it and worked its way out toward the lake, so the people buried here could see the water and have the sunshine on them. Now it’s so overgrown that it isn’t that way anymore. It looks like something out of a video game where you travel through the jungle of an ancient civilization.

Why small cemeteries get forgotten

A cemetery like this one is common in Illinois. The state’s Department of Natural Resources says Illinois considers a cemetery abandoned if it has had no burials for thirty years and was exempt from real estate taxes during that time, or if no cemetery authority cares for the land. It lists the usual causes. Small rural family plots get lost as farms change hands, markers weather away, and farmers clear plots and remove stones. Cities that expand around old burial grounds sometimes move part of the graves and leave the rest unmarked.

Care of an inactive cemetery generally falls to the family or the landowner. A county or township board may set aside money for basic work like clearing brush and mowing, but the state agency says it does not fund restoration. Removing a grave marker has been illegal in Illinois since 1990, and disturbing a grave takes a state permit. The agency also says Illinois has no law giving descendants a right to enter an abandoned cemetery on private land.

I can’t tell you which of those applies to these stones. The pink ribbons and the cleared path say someone still comes through.

The last stone I showed was hidden right back there behind the trees.