207. The Legend of White Cemetery and Cuba Road

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Haunted Cemetery in Barrington

Halloween is just one week from today and, with all of the tombstones, ghouls and eerie jack-o-lanterns decorating homes throughout Barrington, I can’t help but be reminded of the more sinister side of the holiday. After all, Halloween’s namesake, “All Hallows Eve”, is a night when unclean spirits presumably try to upstage the celebration of saints on November 1st, “All Saint’s Day”.  Which leads me to the story of what ghost researchers suspect to be one of the most haunted cemeteries in Illinois. It’s called White Cemetery, it’s located right here in Barrington and, at first glance, it looks like an ordinary resting place.

Haunted Cemetery in Barrington

But I’ve found at least one photo of what some believe is a ghostly figure among the graves in the cemetery, which I will show you in just a minute. But first, I invite you to push the play arrow below which will provide a little background music for what you will discover is a series of truly scary Barrington stories.  However, I MUST WARN YOU, if you are easily frightened, you probably shouldn’t read on.

White Cemetery is on Cuba Road, just east of Old Barrington Road. It dates back as far as the 1820’s and, for many years, has been reported to be haunted by white, eerie globes of light that float and hover among the tombstones.

Spooky Haze at White Cemetery

Just Google “White Cemetery” and you’ll find many ghost research and spirit photographer websites, including PrairieGhosts.com, documenting accounts of ghost sightings at the cemetery.

Hazy White Cemetery
Courtesy of Spirit Photographer, John Cachel

PrarieGhosts.com talks of witnesses who describe seeing glowing lights which “float through the cemetery, drift over the fence and then glide out over the surface of Cuba Road.”

There are also accounts of “hazy human-like figures spotted along the edge of the fence and lingering near stands of trees.

They tend to appear and then vanish at will.”

Though researchers have studied these accounts for years, they’ve discovered no explanation.

Here is a look at one unexplained photo, reportedly taken at White Cemetery, which shows what could possibly be a ghostly apparition to the left of two White Cemetery tombstones.

Ghostly Figure at White Cemetery in Barrington

Could this be a Ghost at White Cemetery?The people who took this photograph were in such disbelief, that they tried zooming in on this hazy figure.  You’ll find the source link for this photo by the * below.  But there is more to the story about possible hauntings along Cuba Road.

Over the years, there have been numerous witness accounts involving a “phantom black automobile that appears near the cemetery and an old house that is seen and then vanishes nearby.”

According to PrarieGhosts.com, “The house is believed to have actually existed many years ago and legends say that it burned down under mysterious circumstances…Some of the sightings involve a spectral old woman that carries a lantern and flags down passing motorists.  When someone stops and tries to help her, she disappears along the edge of the roadway.”  I have also read that if you enter the house and stay until the sun comes up, you will disappear with the house forever.

Cuba Road Ghost CarI’m not sure that I believe in ghosts, but I’d love to know your thoughts on the matter.

DO YOU HAVE ANY GHOST STORIES OF YOUR OWN?  Do you believe in ghosts?  Have you ever experienced anything strange on Cuba Road or had any paranormal experiences in your own home? Have you taken any unexplained photographs?

If so, PLEASE SHARE YOUR STORIES IN THE COMMENTS BOX BELOW.

Mystery Phantom Car Sightings on Cuba Road

Share Your Scary Stories about BarringtonThere’s also a “Scary Story Specialist” at the Barrington Area Library. She’s a Youth Services librarian by the name of Jennifer Drinka and she’s working on her own collection of “Haunted Tales of Barrington”. Jennifer would also love to hear and even record your scary stories in the library’s new audio lab.

Click HERE to find out how to share your story for the library’s archives.

If you want to read something scary this week, for adults Jennifer recommends Chicago Haunts by Ursula Bielski.  Fir kids, Jennifer recommends the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books by Alvin Schwartz.  Jennifer says she’s heard all the stories about White Cemetery and Cuba Road and, though she’s spooked, she says she’s not scared because “The world’s too serious.  You don’t have to know all the answers.  It’s just fun to be afraid.”  If you say so, Jennifer – GULP!

White Cemetery on Cuba Road

*Click HERE for Ghost Photo Source Link

17 Comments

  1. So i just went to the white cemetary for the first

    because me and my freinds were bored so my

    freinds bf said to go there so we did n we pulled

    pulled up to the cemetary n my bffs bf got out n

    n snapped a few pics n when we got home we looked at em

    them n there was a few that had orbs n then in

    Three photos we captured actual photos of what

    appears to be ghosts we caught a real vivid one that

    is of a lil boy who looks like hes from the 1800 its

    super crazy i still cant belive it happened

    • One night at 10-11 aclock at night my friends and I were driving and heard about this haunted Cuba and rainbow road so we decided to drive there. At first we got this creepy chill when we got there and we kept a good watch what was happening. We all saw 2 circles in the trees. At first we thought it was a cars lights but it was way to high up. And we all figured out it was orbs. We also experienced a vanishing house. I remeber finding a huge mansion with no lights on and no driveway then we drove past the same spot and it was not there anymore. At first I thought this all was a myth but now I believe it is true. And we are going to go back at 12 to see what happens.

  2. On a beautiful sunny Fall day back in 2008, I was coming home from work around 3pm heading west on Cuba about to pass the cemetery when a white mist crossed the road in front of me from the south side of the street and headed in to the graveyard. Freaky! It was daytime and the mist was in a human like shape, but fairly large 6 feet?. I kid you not. Never saw it again and I pass that way several times a week…

    • Are you serious!?! Did it look like a man or a woman? I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I wrote the White Cemetery/Haunted Cuba Road post. I was definitely spooked by your story when I read it last night, remembering how creepy it was when I took photos at the cemetery last year. It was during the afternoon, I was in the same spot you’re describing (on the south side of Cuba looking toward the cemetery) and I felt like I was being watched. I’m not sure I believe in ghosts, but it was definitely creepy. Have you had other ghostly sightings in other places?

      • I’ve seen a ghost. At my dad’s house. When I was little. When I told my dad he started to get a little freaked out and said that he saw it too. (He saw it at a different time than me tho) It was kinda freaky. It was a black shadow with curly hair. Later dad showed me a diamond that the person that build the house left behind, along side a ring that the diamond came from. The person who built the house was a jeweler too. On the paper envelope holding the diamond was a shadowy outline of the person who made the jewelry. AND HE LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE THE GHOST I SAW. So yeah, that’s my ghost story.

  3. Me and my two friends decided to go to Cuba Rd. because we wanted to see if it was really haunted. It was night and we were driving on Cuba Rd. when we saw a woman standing along the side of the road. When we got near her, the driver stopped because it looked as if she wanted to cross the road so we let her cross. But when she was crossing, she turned to look at us with a serious expression on her face and she proceeded walking. When we turned to look on the other side of the road she had vanished into the cemetery. I was very frightened because I couldn’t believe that I had actually seen a ghost. I have never returned back to Cuba Rd.

  4. funny, cause me and a couple freinds went and walked through the cemetery at 12 at night till 2. We saw nothing.

  5. It freaks me out every time I go back and read these stories. I went to BHS and used to take Cuba as a shortcut to the hockey rink for practice a few times a week. We had the last time slot of the night so it was always around 10 pm. I had never heard anyone at school talk about Cuba Rd or the cemetery being haunted. I probably drove that stretch hundreds of times without witnessing anything out of the ordinary while I was in high school. Until one day during my senior year…

    I was running late for practice to begin with when I got to the rink and realized that I had forgotten my gloves. I hopped in my car and drove dangerously (high school stupid) fast along Cuba back home, got my gear, and headed back. I was flying down Cuba to the rink when I saw a a pair of headlights approaching from my right, the cemetery side of the road.

    The car was coming fast towards an upcoming intersection. I was worried that it was a cop who had seen me speed home and was hanging out to see if I’d return. I hit the brakes to get down to 35 mph and, after checking my speedometer, the headlights disappeared.

    I thought the cop was trying to hide himself until I passed. I knew I was busted…but when I looked to the right where the car should have been, it was the forested area beyond the cemetery. It was impossible for a car to be drive there.

    It took a while in the locker room to settle down, my friends asked me why I looked so pale. I laughed it off and said I thought I was about to get a ticket for reckless driving. I’d never heard the ghost stories and sure as hell didn’t want to sound like a crackpot in front of my entire team. After finding out about these stories…blows my mind.

    • Me and 2 of my other freinds saw the same thing! After we drove past the cemetary i remember taking a left turn to get off of cuba rd. All of a sudden what looked like suburban head lights pulled right behind us after we turned and started speeding towards us. When we checked again the car was gone. I stopped the car to be sure some one wasnt messing with us or that he stopped and turned his lights off, but no one was there and me and my freind were left freaking out.

  6. I drove up and down Cuba road several times tonight, just getting back to my house a few minutes ago. I didn’t see any orbs, no mysterious cars chasing me down nor did I see anything in my rearview mirror… I did see a deer. Perhaps there’s nothing at all except for urban legends. Perhaps the spirits were tired of curious amateur ghost seekers as it is a few days before Halloween. At any rate, I will try this venture again in a few months.

  7. I’m from Wauconda, not ten minutes from Cuba. My friends and i decided to explore Cuba Road and Rainbow road [which is also speculated to be haunted] when we were about 17. [now 22]. we took a camera, and about 6 of us went exploring down the road. now, i like to believe in stuff like this, but i of course need to be proven it first, so i was probably the least scared of the group to go in the actual cemetary, and into the forest and everything.

    First we went to the White Cemetary. they have a camera in there that is motion detected when you walk through the front gate, so my friend and i hopped the fence, so we could try out a ouja board without worrying about plice or anything showing up. it didn’t work, which i think is due largely due the fact that my friend is very ADHD. i can’t even get him to focus on a tv show for a half hour at a time, so i doubt he was focusing enough on the task at hand. however, we took many pictures, and our friends took pictures of us climbing the fence. we decided to keep walking down the street, as we had heard of the black car that might appear on the road. no such luck :/ however, as we were walking past all the trees, basically a forest, we were hearing chains rattling in the bushes. at first we thought it was our mind playing tricks, but we all heard it more than once, so we decided to explore through the dark trees more.

    as we walked, we could still hear the chains, and what sounded like soft voices, with no actual words. then we stumbled upon a storage unit type thing, kind of resembling a barn. there was also a small fense, with a garden or something in the middle. my memory is kind of foggy as it is years later, but i remember thinking it very odd to have a a fense and/or agarden in the middle of a forest. we had been walking for a bit before we stumbled upon it. i thought maybe it was a farm or a spot to keep some animal in the fense, but it’s not exactly a good spot for farms or farm animals. there was a house in the distance if my memory is correct, which seemed even weirder, as the location was just plain odd. we heard the chains again, and everyone freaked out and ran back to the road. but not before we could take pictures.

    when we looked at all of the pictures later on, there were orbs in just about every one. the brightest one was so bright and noticiable it looked like the moon at first glance. this one was right by the fense when my friend was climbing into the cemetary. definitely so bright, it could not be a problem or dust or anything on the camera. in the forest there were orbs literally all around us. dozens of them…

    i believe in the hauntings, i just think we were too young to take it seriously enough to explore it all further. i never planned on going back, just because it was rather uneventful, and you could easily explain it all away if you dont want to believe. however, my plan is to go back there one day soon, and do everything the right way.

  8. I live in aurora I’ll. The house I lived in at the time had a fire many years ago before I moved into it. An older woman burned to death in the back bedroom. My boyfriend at the time told me about her, I did not believe him. One night we had friends over for dinner, as we were cleaning up he mentioned her again, I did not believe him, my best pie plate was on the stove, ll of a sudden my pie plate lifted off the stove flew by me and shattered on the wall. After that I am a believer. Friends started seeing her at my house, come out of the back bedroom and float out the back door.
    I moved to sandwich I’ll shortly afterand she moved with me, by then I was so use to having her around. One night the covers flew off me, the smalll curio cabinet was hanging on the wall fell to the floor, I heard my door slam I knew she was gone.

  9. My friend and I decided to take a trip down Cuba Road once since we live in Cary and it was only a short ride. We took a trip down Flynn Creek, Cuba, and Rainbow Road but didn’t see anything alarming. We brought along baby powder and paper towels because we have heard stories about the bridge on Cuba Road. My friend approached the bridge, parked quickly, wiped down the bumper and applied the baby powder. We got back in and put the car in neutral and rolled the windows down and we waited. Our car slowly started to roll forward (the bridge is on a slight incline so I’m sure this had to do with it) and then it stopped. A few seconds later, we started to roll forward again. Figuring it was because of the incline we left and went to a nearby gas station. We got out to investigate the car. My friend checked the front and I checked the back. The baby powder was almost completely washed away because it was raining quite a bit. We were just about to get in the car and leave when I noticed two pretty distinct handprints in the fog of rear window that we know for a fact were not there at the start of the night. If I could post the photo I would. My friend and I were stunned. I’m not one to make up stories about these sorts of things which is why I am posting this.

  10. i went here a few years ago, very eerie night. for some reason this night in particular was pitch black the wholeee road. Not a single car or light, not even a house light. didnt realize this till after but we ended up showing up at 3am (dead time) and on a full moon. so its so damn dark we cant find the cemetary, drive past it several times and give up, we light a candle w the virgin marry on it my friend offers a prayer or something i think. so we decide to stop the car, my friend gets out snaps three pics, after looking at the third one she screams and runs back in the car. we had captured a picture of a smokelike apparation with a seemingly animal like, maybe a bulls head figure in it with its mouth wide open, and it was right in front of her face. Kinda freaked out we left in terror. we were within half a mile to a mile from the cemetary, as cuba road isnt that long.

  11. I have relatives buried in White Cemetery, including my great great grandparents. They had a farm just north of the cemetery.

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