JEFFERSON PARK — It's possible that a family of vengeful ghosts wasn't among those living in Jefferson Park in the early 1930s. But the spirits were real enough to influence a jury's decision in the 1932 fire-bombing of a gas station at Higgins and Menard avenues.
Northwest Chicago Historical Society board member Frank Suerth tells the bizarre story in this week's #ThrowbackThursday:
In 1845, Brockman Hopkins purchased 134 acres of land for farming approximately ten miles northwest of the original town of Chicago. He built a home in the area, at what is now approximately 5728 West Higgins Avenue ... Hopkins married Sara Bremen, and they bore five children.
Their son Lafayette, who would eventually own his boyhood homestead, was most likely born in the home on Higgins Avenue. Lafayette married Ella R. Bouroughs (from Washington D.C.) in Chicago on November 8, 1899. At the time, he was 49 years old and his bride was 17. Over the course of their marriage, they never had any children. Lafayette Hopkins passed away on February 5, 1931. Before Lafayette Hopkins died, he told his wife to never sell their home at 5728 West Higgins.
However, Ella did not keep her promise and she sold the house a year later for approximately $7,000. This was the beginning of a string of unusual happenings. William Lambert, owner of a gas station across the street (5765 Higgins Avenue) was the new owner of the home. Several months later, regretting her decision, Ella wanted to buy back the homestead. She offered $9,000 to Lambert, but he refused the offer. Mrs. Hopkins sent him three letters: two letters asking him to reconsider, and one letter telling him that the house was her late husband’s ancestral home and his spirit would roam in it forever. She also indicated that the curse of a dead man would rest on any stranger who lived within the walls and would strike death once every year. Lambert still declined her offer.
On February 7, 1932, William Lambert’s gas station was bombed. Ella Hopkins and her doctor, Leslie Ofner, were arrested on conspiracy to bomb a gas station.
The jury found Hopkins not guilty. Her former home was later demolished and replaced with row homes.
A March 3, 1933, Tribune article, written after the jury's verdict was rendered, describes how the group reached its decision:
The jurors apparently accepted the stories of the accused that they had no part of the bombing, but had merely paid James De Milo, who is awaiting trial, to appease the ghost of her late husband, Lafayette Hopkins, which she said haunted her dreams and made her life "a living hell."
Mrs. Hopkins had been warned by her husband just before his death that he would return in spirit form and haunt her if she ever sold the house, she testified, and after she had sold the place to Lambert, during a session of wine drinking, the spirits of her husband and father-in-law began to appear and demand she "get back that homestead."
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