St. James-Sag
St. James-Sag – Lemont, IL
By Michael Kleen
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St. James of the Sag Church and Cemetery, abbreviated as St. James-Sag, sits on a bluff overlooking the juncture of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and the Calumet Sag Channel. Two roads, Archer Avenue (Rt. 171) and 107th Street also converge at this point. It is the tip of a heavily forested triangle in between Palos Hills to the east and Lemont to the southwest.
The area has a long history. According to Richard T. Crowe, there is evidence that French explorers used the bluff as an observation post as early as the 1690s, and before that, Amerindians camped there and may have lived nearby (Chicago’s Street Guide to the Supernatural, pg. 239).
The church and cemetery also have distant origins. One burial can be traced to 1818, but the graveyard began to be heavily used in the 1830s when Father St. Cyr built a log chapel to accommodate the spiritual needs of the Irish canal workers. St. James-Sag was in fact the second Catholic house of worship founded in the Chicagoland area. The limestone building that exists today was built in 1850.
As the geographic focal point of the area, St. James-Sag also happens to be the supernatural focal point, if you believe the stories…
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i’ve been to st james many times and have captured several orbs. One that was most interesting happened on night that me and a friend were in there at night. For some reason the caretaker or whoever is responsible never closed the gate.
I was using an old film camera that night and took a bunch of pictures. When i was on the side of the chirch, where the ground starts to slope i saw shot a picture. When i put my camera down i saw a green light in front of me but it disappeared. I began to ask my friend if she saw it and as i was talking i loked behind me and there it was again. Then it flew off.
When i developed the pictures the next day the orb was there as was several more throughout the cemetery.
St. James at Sag Bridge is my parish and I have family buried there. The cemetery has been vandalized many times in the past – please, if anyone plans to visit, be respectful and only come during proper visiting hours. It’s a truly beautiful place… peaceful and holy.
Thank you, I hope my readers heed your advice!
That is also my parish and it is a shame to have to have “The St. James National Guard” have to be on duty during Halloween. It is so beautiful there, I can’t imagine anyone vandalizing it. Sorry state of human beings.
People should never vandalize in a cemetery or anywhere else. When visiting they should show respect to all that are laid to rest there. I would love to visit this location in the near future , it looks like a beautiful place.