This may have been a bit of an overstatement, but it’s not hard to understand how the often gruesome and macabre tales of thieves and bandits, death and destruction, created ghostly stories that are still being told today. Many of those will reform, but many, very many, are made fit for robbery and murder. A majority of the settlers have been discharged from penitentiaries and jails or have been the victims of misfortune or imprudence. In 1819, a western traveler wrote, Illinois is the hiding place for villains from every part of the United States and, indeed, from every quarter of the globe. It was easy in those days to operate in secrecy, and the very life of the frontier bred a class of rough and desperate men, capable of committing almost any crime. The beleaguered upholders of the law were unable to be everywhere at once, if they existed at all. The settlements in those days were small and widely scattered, with broad spaces of unknown forest and prairie lying in between.
Outlaws, fleeing in desperation from the restraints of civilization where the law was strictly enforced, found the wilderness a region where they could carry on their lawless ways. During the early 1800s, when it was sparsely populated, Illinois was often the scene of open crime. From the Indian massacres of the War of 1812 to the feuds and vendettas in the late 1800s, there was a long history of violence and death written in blood during the early days of the state. Illinois was, in many ways, born in blood. The tragedies of yesterday often beget the ghost stories of today. Ghosts and hauntings are born from violence, murder, and bloodshed. Now that we have that out of the way, we have to address the questions that always follow such a pointed and matter-of-fact statement about the ghostly denizens of the Prairie State-questions like, why is it so seemingly haunted? If forced to choose a single reason, it would likely be the violent, bloody, and often tragic history of the state.
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