Haunted Rails

My name is Dale R. Hutchins. I'm a licensed electrician and lifelong resident of Grayslake, Illinois. I've been researching the paranormal history of the North Central Service rail corridor since 1998, when I found a water-damaged land surveyor's journal in the crawlspace of my 1904-era home on Barron Boulevard.

The journal belonged to Capt. Elias Foote, a Wisconsin Central Railroad land agent who surveyed this stretch of track in 1878-1879. What it contained, and particularly what I found buried in the technical measurement columns when I finally understood what I was reading, is the reason this site exists.

I'm not a paranormal investigator. I don't believe in most of what passes for ghost research. What I have found on the 1.1-mile segment of railroad between the Washington Street grade crossing and the old Harmon Road crossing in Grayslake is a pattern of mechanical failure and death that I cannot account for, and that has been happening for 128 years.

Fourteen incidents. Nine deaths. All within the same 1.1-mile stretch of track. Zero significant incidents on the adjacent sections in the same time period.

Read the history. Look at the incident records. Then tell me there's nothing here.

B. Connell, est. c.1871
Lake County Historical Archive

Bridget Connell was an Irish immigrant who purchased 18 acres in Avon Township, Lake County, in 1858. She lived there alone for 21 years, farming the land and serving as an informal healer for the surrounding community. She was 55 years old when the Wisconsin Central Railroad came for her property.

She refused to sell. She refused to accept the state's eminent domain compensation. On August 13, 1879, the Lake County Sheriff's deputies arrived with a writ and four Wisconsin Central company men, and she was removed from the property she had spent two decades building.

Connell walked north toward the tamarack marshes on August 20, 1879. She was seen once more, asking for water at the Lund farmstead. After that, nothing. No death record. No hospital. No poorhouse. No grave. In Lake County in 1879, these things were reasonably well documented. She is simply not in them.

The railroad laid track through her former parcel the following spring. The Grayslake station opened in 1886. The village incorporated in 1895. And the incidents began almost immediately after the first train ran through.

"Mrs. Connell cured my daughter of a fever in 1873 that two doctors from Waukegan could not touch. She came at night, boiled something on our stove that smelled like the earth after rain, and left before dawn. My daughter was sitting up eating breakfast by noon. I do not know what Mrs. Connell was. I know she was not a danger to anyone who left her in peace." -- Harriet Vickers Alderman, sworn statement to Avon Township Assessor, September 14, 1879.
(Lake County Township Records, Avon Township, 1879. Microfilm copy, Waukegan Public Library, 1999.)

Grayslake station, Wisconsin Central R.R., circa 1890. The track runs directly over the Connell homestead site.

The Wisconsin Central Railroad was chartered in June 1871 and built southward through Lake County toward Chicago. By 1878, their survey crews were through Avon Township, and the most efficient grade ran straight across Connell's parcel. Three purchase offers were made over eighteen months. All three were refused.

On August 13, 1879, the Lake County Sheriff arrived with a writ of eminent domain and four Wisconsin Central company men. Capt. Foote was not present -- he was a half mile north completing survey work. His account of the removal is secondhand, compiled that evening from Deputy Sheriff Cobb's report. Cobb noted that Connell spoke in Irish for approximately two minutes, appearing to address not the men but the ground. Then she stopped and went without further resistance. She said nothing to the men directly. Two of the four Wisconsin Central laborers gave notice that afternoon and did not return. Foote recorded this without comment: "Two of the clearing crew have given notice. They would not say why and I did not press them."

Foote was back on the parcel himself four days later to finish his survey. His entry for August 17 is three pages of field calculations. At the end: "The crew will not work past four in the afternoon. They say the air changes. I have told them this is foolishness. I am not entirely certain I believe myself."

He never writes about the parcel again in any of the three surviving volumes.

What I didn't understand until 2002 is what is buried in the field measurement columns of those same August 1879 entries. Foote's compass readings are consistent and orderly through most of the journal, which is what you'd expect from a professional surveyor. But on the right-of-way through the Connell parcel, there's a section where his readings go wrong. He noted it as "instrument anomaly, to be re-observed," re-observed two days later, got the same result, applied a correction factor, and moved on without further comment.

When I went back to those pages in 2002 and mapped Foote's anomalous bearing section against his survey grid, the 580-foot stretch corresponded to the same section of ground where I routinely record elevated electromagnetic field readings. That may be a coincidence. I've been trying to figure out whether it is for six years.

Foote's compass was reading that ground in August 1879. One year before the railroad was built. Twenty years before the first death on the corridor. Whatever is in that ground was there before any of it.

For a full account of the history and what I've been able to establish about Bridget Connell, see the History page. The compass entries are discussed in detail there.

Below is a summary of the fourteen documented rail incidents on the 1.1-mile corridor between the Washington Street grade crossing and the old Harmon Road crossing, Avon Township / Grayslake, 1880-2003. Rows highlighted in darker orange fall on or adjacent to the four primary Celtic seasonal dates (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh). Full incident write-ups with primary source citations are on the Incidents page.

Rows in darker orange fall on the four primary Celtic seasonal observances (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh) or within one day of them. The Aug 13, 1979 incident falls on the exact centennial of Connell's removal. Of the fourteen incidents, ten show calendar correlation with these dates. The four observances together account for 4 days out of 365.

The NTSB rail accident database is publicly searchable at data.ntsb.gov. Illinois Commerce Commission incident reports are available through the ICC's public records office.

Waukegan News-Sun, June 9, 2003. Fourteen passengers injured when two Metra NCS cars left the rails near the Washington Street grade crossing. Original clipping in researcher's files. NTSB preliminary report at data.ntsb.gov.

June 7, 2003 is what finally pushed me to put this online. Fourteen people injured. The NTSB issued a preliminary report citing "rail defect leading to flange climb derailment." As of this writing in October 2008, a final report has still not been published. Metra replaced the rail and moved on. Nobody asked why this particular 1.1-mile section has a history unlike any comparable segment in Lake County.

I filed a public comment with the NTSB in August 2003 citing the historical pattern. I have not received a response.