Fearful Footsteps: Poll Reveals the 3 Scariest Graveyards in Illinois. 

• Poll of 3,004 asking: Which graveyard would you be least prepared to visit alone at night?
• Rosehill Cemetery (Chicago) emerged in top spot, followed by Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery (Midlothian), and Springdale Cemetery (Peoria).
• Infographic.

Even the most skeptical Americans tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to haunted places. Ghost believer or not, many will go out of their way to avoid sites steeped in eerie legends. From the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado – the real-life inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining – to New Orleans’ St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, where locals report ghostly figures, whispers between crypts, and unseen hands brushing past, America is full of locations people refuse to enter, especially alone.

Ahead of Halloween, Choice Mutual, a life insurance agency that specializes in final expense insurance, surveyed 3,004 Americans asking a simple question:

Which graveyard would you be least prepared to visit alone at night?

The top 3 scariest graveyards listed in Illinois were:

#1. Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago
Chicago’s largest cemetery blends history with a subtle menace. Security staff have spotted figures inside locked mausoleums, and drivers along Ravenswood Avenue sometimes glimpse movement in the stained-glass reflections. Between Civil War generals and Gilded Age tycoons, the stories here feel grand — and grim.

#2. Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery, Midlothian
Illinois’s most infamous haunt, Bachelor’s Grove has all the makings of a nightmare — an abandoned lane, crumbling stones, and a pond rumored to hide more than one secret. Visitors describe orbs, phantom horses, even a “White Lady” carrying an infant. It’s been investigated countless times, yet no one seems eager to stay long.

#3. Springdale Cemetery, Peoria
One of the state’s oldest and largest cemeteries, with winding roads that twist through wooded hills. Visitors say that after sunset, the trees close in, and the road narrows until you can’t tell which turns lead out. The river fog rolls in without warning, erasing the path behind you. Every direction looks like the wrong one.

The top 10 scariest graveyards in the country were:

#1. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York
The scariest graveyard in America? Yes, that Sleepy Hollow – Washington Irving is buried here, and some claim his Headless Horseman still rides through on misty nights. Lantern light glints off the Hudson, hooves echo on the bridge, and every rustle in the trees feels a little too deliberate. The line between fiction and folklore is never quite settled.

#2. Gettysburg National Cemetery, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Beautiful, solemn, and saturated with ghosts, Gettysburg’s cemetery stands on ground that still feels alive with movement. Visitors have heard distant cannon fire, smelled gunpowder, and seen men in blue pacing through the fog. The line between battlefield and burial ground never really hardened here – it just blurred.

#3. Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles, California
By day, it’s a celebrity landmark, but by night, the glamour fades into something stranger. Groundskeepers tell of voices drifting from the mausoleums and a phantom woman seen pacing near the lake. Even in death, old Hollywood knows how to keep an audience – and some say these spirits still crave the spotlight.

#4. Pine Hill Cemetery (“Blood Cemetery”), Hollis, New Hampshire
Probably New Hampshire’s most notorious haunt, Pine Hill is nicknamed “Blood Cemetery” for Abel Blood, whose name and eerie gravestone carving supposedly glow red under the moon. Visitors swear the angel’s hand points up by day and down by night. Even the bravest ghost-hunters tend to leave before midnight.

#5. Boothill Graveyard, Tombstone, Arizona
It’s tourist-friendly by day, but after dark, Boothill’s bravado gives way to something colder. The wind hums through tilted wooden crosses, and some swear they’ve heard bootsteps crunching the gravel long after the gates close. Buried here are outlaws, gunfighters, and innocents caught in between – all reminders that Tombstone’s Wild West never really went quiet.

#6. Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Cemetery, Weston, West Virginia
Behind the vast stone asylum lies a quiet memorial field where former patients were buried without names – only numbers once marked the ground. The markers are gone now, but visitors still speak of faint singing and a trace of antiseptic in the still air. It isn’t the asylum’s echoing halls that feel most haunted – it’s the hush that lingers just beyond them.

#7. St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, Louisiana
Crumbling walls, candlelight flickers, and crypts stacked like chess pieces in the humidity – it’s the most famous haunted cemetery in America for a reason. Visitors whisper about the spirit of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau, whose tomb is marked by mysterious Xs. Entry is only by guided tour, including a few that brave the night.

#8. Old City Cemetery (Historic City Cemetery), Sacramento, California
One of the oldest municipal cemeteries in the South, Old City mixes beauty and unease. Guests say voices drift from the Pest House Museum after midnight, and lamps turn on by themselves. It’s part graveyard, part museum – and both parts seem to breathe.

#9. Salem Cemetery, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Set behind the Moravian church buildings, Old Salem Cemetery is hauntingly orderly – identical flat stones, no grand markers. According to legend, residents often say a woman in gray glides silently through the rows at night, stopping where her child once rested. It’s peaceful in daylight, but at dusk the stillness hums.

#10. Old Hill Burying Ground, Concord, Massachusetts
A small coastal cemetery overlooking the Cape Fear River, it’s lined with seashells and stories. Mariners have seen lanterns swaying among the graves on foggy nights – lights that vanish the moment anyone calls out. The tide seems to breathe with the place.

Infographic showing the 150 scariest graveyards in the country

“You don’t need to believe in ghosts to feel something in these places,” says Anthony Martin, founder of Choice Mutual. “Cemeteries are where stories outlive the people who told them – and that’s what really makes them haunting. The fear is just the surface; underneath it is memory.”