Bellair Cemetery
Bellair Cemetery is a cemetery in Bellair, Illinois. Cemetery associated with documented cultural history. A historical-society survey reproduced by the investigator identifies an 1841 Benjamin Tharp grave. Reported lore and claims include: Investigators reported a green light, a child-sized shadow and recorded growling during a July 2017 visit.
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Is Bellair Cemetery haunted?
The record holds 1 claim — filed as reported, not verified. The heaviest filing is classed investigation claim. The archive documents the claim; it takes no position on the ghost.
The record — long form
The oldest stone that can still be read belongs to Benjamin Tharp, who died February 22, 1841, at twenty-six years old. His grave sits in Row 11 of the burial ground the county survey calls Bellair Cemetery — also known as Freeland Cemetery — a large rural graveyard on the north side of the road east of Bellair's main street.
A Crawford County Genealogical Society project re-canvassed the ground in 1999–2000, checking every monument against older listings and a funeral-home plat. The survey logged around six hundred known burials within a ground believed to hold a thousand or more, including unmarked graves and reserved family lots, with veterans from the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, the Mexican War, the Civil War, and both World Wars.
The reported layer
The folklore accumulated the way cemetery folklore does. Locals recount a boy in a golf hat and suspenders seen running between the stones; voices and EVPs near the grave of a man said to have died on Halloween; dark figures in the back section among the Civil War dead, where one recorded voice was said to warn 'don't talk about the war'; a dog's bark chased for ten minutes with nothing found; a green light bright enough to illuminate stones; a front fence rattled end to end by nothing visible.
On July 1, 2017, the Ghost Research Society and Crawford County Ghost Hunters logged the file's central claim: a deep green light seen by two investigators, a small shadow darting between stones, and a low growl captured on a camcorder. The file notes animal sounds as a possible explanation and files everything above as reported experience — the sessions that convince the people who were standing in the dark.
The record of claims
Investigators reported a green light, a child-sized shadow and recorded growling during a July 2017 visit. Reports in the file date to 2017-07-01 investigation; not asserted as earliest folklore.. A cemetery in Bellair, Illinois accumulating ghost reports is almost tautological — but this is the one the record kept. It's an investigation claim — the kind that convinces the people who were in the room. Sources including 'Bellair Cemetery (Freeland Cemetery)' keep the claim in circulation. The figure remains the site's most-repeated sighting.
Documented history
A historical-society survey reproduced by the investigator identifies an 1841 Benjamin Tharp grave. A cemetery in Bellair, Illinois with this much on record gives the file real ground to stand on. The press recorded it; the detail stands as reported history. The detail is preserved in 'Bellair Cemetery (Freeland Cemetery)'. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.
Media reportedGhost Research Society / Dale Kaczmarek
Sources on file
- 01Bellair Cemetery (Freeland Cemetery)Ghost Research Society / Dale Kaczmarek · paranormal organization · A4
Field notes & open questions
Near Annapolis. Report reproduces a county historical society cemetery survey; original survey not independently reviewed. Animal sounds remain a possible explanation for growling.