Robinson Woods

Visitors and paranormal investigators at Robinson Woods report strange lights after dark, flickering lights, whispers, unexplained smells including lilac near the graves in winter, glowing orbs, the sound of an axe cutting a tree and a drumbeat with no source found; in a documented 1974-75 study, recording equipment near the Robinson family graves picked up a repetitive noise later judged to be the beating of a tom-tom. Some report seeing the spirits of Alexander Robinson and his family at night. The woods take their name from Alexander Robinson, Chief Chee-Chee-Pin-Quay of the Potawatomi, Odawa and Ojibwe, who was granted this land for his role helping survivors of the 1812 Fort Dearborn attack and lived here with his family until his death in 1872; he and several family members are buried on the grounds. The woods carry a separate, grimmer history: in October 1955, three boys, Robert Peterson and brothers John and Anton Schuessler, were found murdered nearby, a case that went unsolved for nearly 40 years until Kenneth Hansen was convicted in 1995.