4th of July Funeral Procession
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The 4th of July has always been a day to celebrate our independence, fireworks, picnics, carnivals, and parades. The town of Prarie du Rocher in southern Illinois has its own parade when the 4th falls on a Friday. Not your ordinary parade with bands and floats, but a ghostly funeral parade.
It starts at Fort de Chartres and ends at a small cemetery outside Prairie du Rocher. The fort was built in the 1700s and used to protect the French settlers that had trading posts in the area. In 1763, when France was defeated in the French and Indian War, Illinois territory was surrendered to the British. They took over the fort but under their command it went downhill and fell into ruin.
The story started in July of 1889. Near midnight a woman was sitting on her porch with a neighbor when they saw an assembly of people and wagons coming up the road near them. They were confused as to why they would be on the road at that time of night. They saw over forty wagons with men and women in them. The parade was led by horsemen and foot soldiers that looked strange in the moonlight. They finally figured out that it was a funeral procession when they saw a wagon carrying a casket.
Even though the size of the parade was massive, the only sounds that the two women heard was the rustling of the trees and a dog barking. The dog's barking woke the neighbors husband, who looked out the window in time to see the bizarre event. The parade went over the hill and out of sight. They sat and waited for it to return but it never did.
What started the strange parade happened while the French were in control of the fort. An important local had a violent argument with one of the officers and was accidentally killed. The government told the commander that it would be best if the death was kept secret, and told them to bury the man at midnight. A parade of soldiers and horseman led the way—the same parade that the two women witnessed a hundred years later.
Since then there have been other reports of the funeral procession, and a staff member of the fort told of the coyotes howling at midnight. The parade only happens in years when the 4th is on a Friday, which happens again in the years 2008, 2014, and 2025.
