Gangsters, fire-starting cows, the best pizza in the world (not up for discussion, your opinion is wrong), corrupt politicians, murder castles - Chicago is known for a lot of things, but did you know Chicago is rife with urban legends? I’m talking killer clowns, demon babies, and our very own version of Bloody Mary, called Candy Man. This go-around, we’re talking Hull-House. Ready for some nightmare fuel? Let’s get spooky.

Up first: The Hull-House Devil Baby

For those of you who need a quick primer on your badass female history, Jane Addams was an activist whose name you’ve heard connected to the women’s suffrage movement. Addams was also a significant force for social change, and founded one of the first settlement houses in the U.S., Hull-House.

On Chicago’s near West side, Hull-House provided childcare, basic health care, employment support, libraries, classes in English, citizenship, theater. It was a big deal in the community, much like Addams herself. Oh yeah, and she won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Now for the Devil Baby.

Hull-House residents found out that they were hiding a tiny devil from the neighborhood when three Italian women burst through the door one spring day in 1913, demanding to see the newborn. This devil baby, complete with the standard cloven hoofs, pointed ears, and a diminutive tail, could also speak immediately upon birth, blessing everyone present with profanity. Personally, I would expect nothing less.

How do you get yourself your own devil baby, you don’t ask? I gotchu. (There are a hundred variations of this, this is the Italian version. Why the Italian version? Because this is the version Jane Addams published in The Atlantic.)

Step 1. Be a hella pious Catholic woman

Step 2. Find and have sex with an atheist who would rather “have a devil in the house” than any religious or holy pictures.

Step 3. Get pregnant with the aforementioned Devil Baby

After the Devil Baby was born, his dad brought him to Hull-House in fear. The residents of Hull-House, wanting to save the baby's soul, took him to church to be baptized. Being a devil, the baby had other plans, and was witnessed running away over the back of the church pews, as fast as his little devil-hoofed legs could take him.

People lined up down the street for six weeks, offering money and begging to see the baby at all hours of the day and night. Hull-House residents supposedly hid the newborn in the attic, locked away and hidden from the public.

In the Jewish version, again with variations, instead of an atheist, the Devil Baby’s dad is the father of six daughter’s, and while his wife is in labor with their seventh child, exclaims to the heavens how he would rather have a devil than another girl. Be careful what you wish for.

What does this have to do with urban legends? Like all urban-legends, and fairy-tales, this story was meant to control others behavior. This particular urban legend was unusual because it focused on absolving women of any wrongdoing, and putting the responsibility on men.

Today, the Devil Baby, many claim, is still alive, lurking in the attic.

There are other reports of ghost children who haunt Hull-House, but their origins are a bit more murky. Ghost children have been heard running up and down the hallways upstairs, and are sometimes seen in the back courtyard - earning them the nickname, “the fountain girls”.

In the courtyard there also exists a circular concrete slab that was previously the location of a fountain. Chicago legend says this circular concrete slab is a portal to Hell, and there have been numerous reports of monks seen both inside and around Hull-House.

The most famous spirit of Hull-House, however, is the resident Lady in White. Lady in White ghost stories, similar to La Llorona, or Chicago’s Resurrection Mary, are typically tied to women who died tragically and are looking to complete some purpose or looking for someone. Hull-House’s Lady in White is believed to be Millicent Hull, the wife of real-estate developer Charles J. Hull, who built the mansion in 1865 as a summer home. Millicent Hull died of an unspecified illness in her bedroom in 1860. When Addams rented Hull-House from Millicent’s daughter, the pre-existing tenants in the building shared their experiences with Millicent, who still wandered the halls at night. To protect themselves, the residents would leave buckets of water on the stairway to the attic, believing that spirits were unable to cross running water.

Interested in hearing more of Hull-House’s Haunted History? During October, on select Thursday’s and Friday’s, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum is celebrating Spooky Season with ghost-tours hosted by a Museum Educator. For tickets and information, please visit hullhousemuseum.org.

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Written by Andronike James

There is no connection between the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum and The Secret Society of the Spooky Sisterhood.

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