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| The Bachelor's Grove Cemetery lies abandoned, disowned by government, abused by teenagers, protected by a meager staff of volunteers who struggle for any resources to support their mission |
The homesteads and town-site that comprised Bachelor's Grove, IL are lost save a few hints left for the seeking eye. The Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, however, is still a cursed plot of land that is under county ownership and cannot be missed if one travels the old Midlothian Turnpike out of the city of Chicago into southwestern Cook County. It is excised from the surrounding county park though un-acknowledged on current maps.
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| The Old Midlothian Turnpike, south of 143rd, is now a walking path only. |
The 'Everdon Burying Ground' as described in the earliest deeds to the land that Mr. Everdon passed to the Schmitt's (Smith's). These mention the plot on the SE quadrant of the parcel, but no state registration was ever received for the cemetery by the state board chartered to receive such forms, wrapped around the requisite check for their troubles. The surrounding area had been settled by German immigrants in the early 1800s and a nearby townsite was forming under the Bachelor's Grove banner, though history has melted clarity around how the name was derived. As progress marched on, train tracks were laid north and south of Bachelor's Grove. A power hungry county board under the guise of Manifest Destiny began to reclaim UN-perfected homesteads, and surely though slowly, the land was absorbed by the muck of Cook County interdepartmental politics.
