The Haunted Hull House in Chicago
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First built for the Hull family in 1856 in a then-fashionable part of Chicago, Hull House became one of the country’s first settlement houses in 1889 when social worker Jane Addams bought the property to provide social and economic opportunities for the neighborhood’s poor. But not everyone associated with the landmark building had good intentions, particularly the building’s notorious ghosts.
The first noted ghost in Hull House preyed upon Jane Addams herself. It seems the deceased Mrs. Charles Hull didn’t like the fact that Addams was sleeping in her bedroom. Addams moved to another bedroom, but other inhabitants of the house reported hearing, and at times even seeing, the ghost.
But the most sinister ghost was the Devil Baby.
Rumor had it that a devout Catholic woman and her atheist husband were cursed with a devil child who had pointed ears, horns, a tail and scales on his skin. The baby was so troublesome that the father took it to Hull House to be raised by the charitable women there. But the good women of Hull House couldn’t cope with the demon child and legend says they locked the boy in the attic until his demise.
Rumors spread quickly about the baby and within a few weeks, hundreds of people came to the house to get a glimpse of it. How the story had gotten started, no one knew, but it spread throughout the west side neighborhood and was reported by famous Chicago reporter Ben Hecht. He claimed that every time he tried to run down the story, he was directed to find the child at Hull House. Many people came to the door and demanded to see the child, while others quietly offered to pay an admission. They believed the wild story to be absolutely true!
Each day, Jane turned people away and tried to convince them that the story was fabricated. She even devoted 40 pages of her autobiography to dispelling the stories. Even though most of the poorly educated immigrants left the house still believing the tales of the Devil Baby, the stream of callers eventually died out and the story became a barely remembered side note in the history of Hull House.