For years the Alton National Historic Cemetery in Illinois had been on my bucket list as a paranormal investigator. Not just because its haunted but because this may be one of the finest most historically significant cemeteries in the Midwest. Its kind of one of those places you have to see even if its just to take a comfortable morning stroll. While I find less known cemeteries are more active when it comes to the paranormal this cemetery has its fair share of spooky tales that are intertwined with deep rich history primarily surrounding the American Civil War.

Over the years I have been to some of the countries top cemeteries but also the most haunted ones. I have no doubts that this place of the dearly departed has its share of the strange. I wish I lived closer to be able to observe some of that activity but no less I can say at least that I was here and that I had gotten the chance to explore it a little. Afterall this is the third oldest cemetery in the state of Illinois. The register states that a burial took place in 1812 while the official records don't begin till 1835 so their is a bit of mystery in regards to its age. Many of the crypts were broken into and some older graves dug up. The homeless were using them as a place for shelter and many of the corpses have vanished without a trace.

Many famous people relevant to the the state of Illinois history are found to be buried here. Some of those sites are said to also be home to some really fantastic ghost stories. Whether that is some of the spirits of the 263 Union soldiers found buried here roaming the cemeteries hillsides who often were soldiers who died of various diseases at the local hospital or were on board steamboats heading north on the Mississippi River. Life was very difficult for many of the people found buried in Alton many of them led tragic lives as smallpox spread through the region especially the Alton Prison in 1863 killing more then 1,400 incarcerated soldiers.

Their are quite a few cemeteries surrounding the national cemetery including a confederate burial ground which has a monument of over 1500 confederate soldiers that died in the Alton Prison during the Civil War. Many of them listed on the monument died in prison when disease broke out. I cant imagine how tragic it had to be to be captured by your enemy only to succumb to disease. Their is also an island not far from here where 300 men some prisoners some soldiers died which is now submerged underwater. So the area is very rich when it comes to Civil War History with the national cemetery being in the middle of it all!

The former Illinois State Penitentiary in 1861 would be converted to a military prison which had over 250 cells, hospital, wardens house and huge issues with sanitation as well as drainage. Which is what may have led to the surmountable disease outbreaks during the civil war. The prison could house almost as many as 1800 war prisoners and the first 1600 had arrived in March of 1862. Most of the soldiers were captured at nearby Fort Donelson which was a confederate stronghold just west of Clarksville Tennessee. However it did not take long for the men to parish because smallpox plagues were frequent which led to the army building hospitals on various nearby islands within the Mississippi River to treat the prisoners. Both prisoners and Union soldiers died on those islands were buried on said islands never being moved to the mainland let alone Alton National Cemetery. At least 12 thousand confederate prisoners entered this prison in Alton at one time or another during the civil war but 1300 did not make it out alive. While this has very little to do with the National Cemetery one can start to develop a sense of travesty surrounding it during the Civil War era. While smallpox killed many civil war soldiers it also killed many men, women and children in Alton who are buried here today!

One of the most fascinating monuments found in the cemetery is that of Elijah P. Lovejoy who was an abolitionist in the 1830's who ran a newspaper called the St. Louis Observer in Missouri which was pro slavery. Unfortunately those who supported slavery attacked and destroyed his printing presses numerous times. So Lovejoy decided to move across the river to Alton in 1837 where he renamed it the Alton Observer. Even though Illinois was against slavery not everyone shared that same view and in 1837 Lovejoys presses would be attacked a fourth time. Sadly at the time Lovejoy was in the warehouse when it was attacked by armed men and a shootout ensued. Lovejoy was killed in the conflict as the men burned down his newspaper. This brought national attention to the world stage and even Abraham Lincoln spoke about it. While Lovejoys monument did not come to be till 60 years after his death he was not buried in Alton National Cemetery. Lovejoy was actually buried in an unmarked grave then years later they exhumed him to be buried in another cemetery. Rumor has it that Lovejoys ghost does haunt the monument designed by R.P. Bringhurst who was its designer a St. Louis Sculptor and the Culver Stone Company based out of Springfield Illinois.

Lovejoy gave his life for free speech, press and believed all men should be free. He was a Presbyterian Minister so he was very dedicated to the bible. He would sing religious hymns and led a very religious life full of morals. He actually attended college so he bought half of the interest in the St. Louis Times and took an interest with social injustice as well as politics. I mean honestly when Elijah had gotten his first printing press before dawn it was destroyed and dumped into the river. When Lovejoy was murdered he died protecting his press sure he could have left the scene and survived. But he stood for something he believed in and after four times that was enough for him to stand up against the injustices of an angry mob who felt threatened not by him but by his words. Its funny how America was born into slavery, prejudices and total opposite of what our constitution stood for. Even though we had freedom of press in the 1800's it was only free press for those trying to suppress it.

Their is another grave that I visited the grave of Sarah Bell who died when she was ten years old. When the Bell family placed a small stone for her gravemarker it vanished without a trace. The mother spent years looking for her little girls stone but never found it all the way up until her death. For years the apparition of a lady in black was seen walking around the cemetery as if she was searching for something. Strangely in a town called Edwardsville which is about 18 miles from Alton a man contacted the cemetery wanting to return a gravestone he found in his backyard. He was digging a foundation when he unearthed it and it was the stone of Sarah Bell which was missing for over a century. The lady in black was never seen again once the gravestone was returned to Sarah's plot.  Their is also a ghost named Lucy Haskell seen near the Hayner/Haskell monument. This was one of my first gravestones I walked up to during my investigations. Another ghost is a spectral lady seen near the Grandview Mausoleum. That is not even all the ghostly tales but it does put some things into perspective as a designated haunted site!

The cemetery is full of major historical figures including the McPike Family who just a few blocks away lived in the McPike Mansion a family who started the horticultural society and was known for its famous McPike Grape. Then their is Stephen Long who surveyed the West after the Lewis and Clark Expedition and also surveyed Western American Railroad routes. H.H. Ferguson is also buried in Alton National who founded the Illinois Terminal Railroad. Many of these people buried within the cemetery all had beautiful mansions in the neighborhood. That is why if your taking a stroll in the cemetery you should also drive around the area just so you can see some of these historically haunted homes. They kind of go hand in hand with the cemetery. Just to name a few of the interments found here and honestly that is not even the tip of the iceberg. You could spend all day roaming this cemetery if you really wanted to researching many prominent names who shared in Alton and the state of Illinois history. But if I gave away everything it would defeat the purpose of our viewers getting off their couch and doing some actual exploring so I will let the wondrous minds wander.

Honestly, this is a gorgeous cemetery but the amount of vandalism done here is very high. You cant replace many of these gravestones. I have done quite a few historical cemeteries over the years and places like these are still my favorite. I mean not only does the cemetery give you detailed plaques and good history lessons but its a park like setting so its full of nature all surrounded by some of Americans most prestigious historical mansions to have ever been built in the Midwest. I am sure many more secrets await discovery but its no secret that its haunted or that the folks buried here did not live difficult lives at times which often led to their demise. While that is the case with many cemeteries dating back to this time period their is only one Alton National Historic Cemetery!
 
Copyright By
Lord Rick aka AngelOfThyNight
Producer, Paranormal Investigator, PGS Founder, Journalist, Talk Show Host & Author
 

Alton, Illinois

Although Alton once was growing faster than the nearby city of St. Louis, a coalition of St. Louis businessmen planned to build a competing town to stop Alton's expansion and bring business to St. Louis. The resulting town was Grafton, Illinois.

Many blocks of housing in Alton were built in the Victorian Queen Anne style. They represent a prosperous period in the river city's history. At the top of the hill in the commercial area, several stone churches and a fine city hall also represent the city's wealth during its good times based on river traffic, manufacturing and shipping. It was a commercial center for a large agricultural area. Numerous residences on hills have sweeping views of the Mississippi River.^{[citation needed]}

Early history

The Alton area was home to Native Americans for thousands of years before the 19th-century founding by European Americans of the modern city. Historic accounts indicate occupation of this area by the Illiniwek or Illinois Confederacy at the time of European contact. Earlier native settlement is demonstrated by archaeological artifacts and the famous prehistoric Piasa bird painted on a cliff face nearby. The image was described in 1673 by French missionary priest Father Jacques Marquette.^{[citation needed]}

19th century

Alton was developed as a river town in January 1818 by Rufus Easton, who named it after his son. Easton ran a passenger ferry service across the Mississippi River to the Missouri shore. Alton is located amid the confluence of three navigable rivers: the Illinois, the Mississippi, and the Missouri. Alton grew into a river trading town with an industrial character. The city rises steeply from the waterfront, where massive concrete grain silos and railroad tracks were constructed in the 19th and 20th centuries to store and ship the area's grains and produce. Brick commercial buildings are spread throughout downtown. Once the site of several brick factories, Alton has an unusually high number of streets still paved in brick. The lower levels of Alton are subject to floods, many of which have inundated the historic downtown area. The dates of different flood levels are marked on the large grain silos, part of the Ardent Mills, near the Argosy Casino at the waterfront. The flood of 1993 is considered the worst of the last century.^{[citation needed]}

Alton became an important town for abolitionists, as Illinois was a free state across from the slave state of Missouri. Pro-slavery activists also lived there and slave catchers often raided the city. Escaped slaves would cross the Mississippi to seek shelter in Alton, and proceed to safer places through stations of the Underground Railroad. During the years before the American Civil War, several homes were equipped with tunnels and hiding places for stations on the Underground Railroad to aid slaves escaping to the North. On November 7, 1837, the abolitionist printer Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered by a pro-slavery mob while he tried to protect his Alton-based press from being destroyed for the third time. He had moved from St. Louis because of opposition there. He had printed many abolitionist tracts and distributed them throughout the area. When one of the mob made a move to set the old warehouse on fire, Lovejoy, armed with only a pistol, went outside to try to stop him. The pro-slavery man shot him dead (with a shotgun, five rounds through the midsection). The mob stormed the warehouse and threw Lovejoy's printing press into the Mississippi. Lovejoy thus became the first martyr of the abolition movement.

Alton became the seat of a diocese of the Catholic Church in 1857. Its first bishop was French-born Henry Damian Juncker. The new diocese had 58 churches, 18 priests and 50,000 Catholics. When he died, 11 years later, the churches were 125, the priests more than 100, and the Catholics 80,000. He was succeeded by Peter Joseph Baltes from Germany (1869–1886) and James Ryan (1888–1923). In 1923 the bishop's seat was moved to Springfield, Illinois. The Diocese of Alton, no longer a residential bishopric, is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.^[3] Titular bishops appointed to the see have been John Clayton Nienstedt and Josu Iriondo.^[4][5]

On October 15, 1858, Alton was the site of the seventh Lincoln-Douglas debate. A memorial at the site in downtown Alton features oversized statues of Lincoln and Douglas, as they would have appeared during the debate. Congressional representatives came to Alton when they drafted the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, to permanently end slavery throughout the Union. Alton resident and US Senator Lyman Trumbull, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, co-wrote the Thirteenth Amendment. His Alton home, the Lyman Trumbull House, is a National Historic Monument.

Just two weeks into the American Civil War, Alton played a role in the infamous Camp Jackson Affair, which led to the eviction of Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson from office. The State of Missouri's neutrality was tested in a conflict over the St. Louis Arsenal. The Federal Government reinforced the Arsenal's tiny garrison with several detachments, including a force from the 2nd Infantry under Captain Nathaniel Lyon. Concerned by widespread reports that Governor Jackson intended to use the Missouri Volunteer Militia to attack the Arsenal and capture its 39,000 small arms, Secretary of War Simon Cameron ordered Lyon (by that time in acting command) to evacuate the majority of the arms to Illinois. 21,000 guns were secretly evacuated to Alton, IL on the evening of April 29, 1861.

The first penitentiary in Illinois was built in Alton. While only a corner of it within a few blocks of the river remains, it once extended nearly to "Church Hill". During the American Civil War, Union forces used it to hold prisoners of war, and some 12,000 Confederates were held there. During the smallpox epidemic of 1863–1864, an estimated 1500–2200 men died. A Confederate mass grave on the north side of Alton holds many of the dead from the epidemic and a memorial marks the site. Often when Confederate prisoners escaped, they tried to cross the Mississippi River back to the slave state of Missouri.^]

20th century

Robert Pershing Wadlow, listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's tallest man at 8 feet 11.1 inches tall, 2.72 m, is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in the area known as Upper Alton. The earth over his grave was raised so visitors can compare its length to other graves. A memorial to him, including a life-sized statue and a replica of his chair, stands on College Avenue, across from the Southern Illinois University Dental School.

The Sisters of St Francis of the Martyr St George have their American province motherhouse in Alton.

In 1937 two commercial fishermen from Alton caught a bull shark in the Mississippi River. Late that summer they had realized something was troubling their wood and mesh traps. Concluding that it was a fish, they built a strong wire trap and baited it with chicken guts. The next morning, they caught the 5-foot 84-pound shark, which they displayed in the Calhoun Fish Market, where it attracted crowds for days.

World War II saw a group of seven brothers join the military and variously became decorated veterans.^[6] Among these were Millard Glen Gray, who was decorated by Douglas MacArthur, and Neil Gray, who received the Silver Star.^[6]

In 1954, the city of Alton was named as one of three finalists for the location of the new United States Air Force Academy. Alton lost to the winning site of Colorado Springs, Colorado.^[7]

Because of Alton's location at the Mississippi River, the Great Flood of 1993 with its high water levels caused severe damage to the city. Alton's water supply was cut off due to flooding, and townspeople had to be supplied with bottled water for more than three weeks. Many local businesses, including Anheuser-Busch of St. Louis, donated funds to help the people of Alton.^[8]

The original bridge connecting Alton with West Alton, Missouri, was a two-lane (one in each direction) bridge that had become a hazard for motorists and a hindrance for emergency vehicles. The northernmost bridge in the St. Louis metropolitan area, it was torn down in the 1990s. The current Clark Bridge, with two lanes of divided traffic in each direction, plus two bike lanes, opened in 1994. Work had proceeded during the Great Flood of 1993. The award-winning cable-stayed design was done by Hanson Engineers of Springfield, Illinois. Pieces of cables identical to those of the bridge were handed out in educational settings all over the city to allow the city's children to "take home a piece of the bridge". The complex work of construction of the bridge, in which engineers had to deal with the strong river current, barge traffic and the 1993 flood, was featured in the documentary Super Bridge on Nova.^[9]

21st century

In 2021, voters in the city elected David Goins as Alton's first black mayor.

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