The Driverless Hearse

Resurrection Cemetery

You may have thought we left Resurrection Cemetery behind when we said good-bye and happy haunting to Resurrection Mary, but we’re back again with a different apparition. Resurrection Mary has become such a well-known sighting now-even appearing on national television-that another ghostly phenomenon that occurs near her home cemetery is all but forgotten.

This apparition involves a driverless hearse-and old-time vintage horse-drawn hearse that is seen rushing out of the gates of Resurrection Cemetery and dashing wildly down Archer Avenue. Oddly enough, its destination is another cemetery: St. James of Sag Cemetery which was in use earlier in the 1900s.

Although it may seem odd for a hearse to rush from one cemetery to another-maybe he had taken a burial to the wrong graveyard-you also have to take into account that the vehicle is driverless. Maybe the ghost horse was simply following the route it knew best.

Many people have been startled by this odd sight as well as by peculiar occurrences at the huge mausoleum that stands on the grounds of Resurrection Cemetery. Frequently in the middle of the night organ playing has been heard and the lights in part of the building begin flickering wildly. When authorities are called to the scene there is never anyone there or any logical explanation such as faulty wiring or an electrical storm for the behavior of the lights.

But there’s even more. Another manifestation is associated with this general area-the Sag Bridge ghost. It may even be the same driverless hearse that appears to bolt from Resurrection Cemetery and is merely being seen at another point on its journey crossing the Sag Bridge on Route 171.

At any rate, the vision was first seen by two visiting musicians from Chicago who were in Lemont, Illinois, to give a performance at the St. James of Sag parish church. The sound of hoofbeats awoke then n the middle of the night but when they went to the window to check on the noise they didn’t see any horses. What they did see, however, was a black-haired woman dressed in white who was floating down the middle of the street. However, the horses that had been making the clatter then appeared, pulling a dark vehicle behind them. The shocked musicians watched in amazement as seconds later both the woman in white and the dark vehicle were swallowed into the road. No explanation has even been given as to who the white lady might have been or the reason for the appearance of the dark vehicle. The answers seem to have been swallowed into the ground with the apparitions.