Urbana's Old Graveyard is Remembered with an Ohio Historical Marker - June 7, 2014 at 1:00p.m.

Champaign County Historical Society809 East Lawn Avenue Urbana, Ohio 43078937-653-6721champhistmus@ctcn.net
 
May 15, 2014

URBANA’S OLD GRAVE YARD TO RECEIVE HISTORIC MARKER URBANA, OHIO

A spacious, grassy plot at the northeast corner of the intersection of Ward and Kenton Streets in Urbana has witnessed pick-up ball games, flyers of kites, builders of snowmen, picnickers, youngsters school bound and neighborhood families out for a stroll.

It is doubtful that any of them realized the significance of this little park, established in 1805 as the first burial grounds for the Urbana settlement.

For nearly two centuries, this quiet spot has fulfilled its assignment as a final resting place for pioneer ancestors, but with nary a headstone, a monument, a flag or a flower to tell its story to passersby. That will soon be remedied.

June 7 at 1 p.m., the Champaign County Historical Society (CCHS), in collaboration with the Ohio Historical Society, will unveil a historic marker at the site of what is known as the Old Grave Yard at the corner of Ward and Kenton Streets, once the north and east boundaries of Urbana, explaining the reason for this little clearing in the midst of a residential neighborhood.

In addition to the Champaign County and Ohio Historical Societies, the event is being sponsored by the Walter Smith Funeral Home and the City of Urbana and was organized by the CCHC Historic Marker Committee, Joe Rizzutti, chair, Mark Gaver and Dan Walter.

The text of the marker acknowledges the location as the county’s original burial ground, dedicated in 1805 and in use until 1856, and honors those still interred, one of which is believed to be a young daughter of Simon Kenton.

The reverse side of the marker commemorates the 202nd anniversary of the War Council of 1812, a gathering of local settlers and representatives of the Wyandot and Shawnee tribes held in 1812 about a hundred yards southwest of the Old Grave Yard.

The War Council was called by Ohio Governor Meigs to assure the Native Americans that should General William Hull’s troops, then encamped in Urbana, be deployed to Detroit through tribal lands, the terms of the Treaty of Greenville would be upheld, and to confirm that the Native Americans would stand as our allies against the British.

The June 7 program will include dedicatory remarks by sponsors and project researchers. Some of the Kenton Kin, descendants of Simon Kenton, will be introduced as will members of the Shawnee, Seneca, Mingo and Wyandot Nations. Historic re-enactors in period costume will be on hand and a Native American Drumming Ceremony will be featured.

Following the on-site formalities, the Champaign County Historical Society will host a reception at the Museum.

Rizzutti notes that city records, maps, county histories, biographies and newspaper articles contributed to the information for the marker application, but some of what is told of the property and those buried there is rooted in oral history and is difficult to verify.

Rizzutti adds that it took an act of nature to give impetus to the ongoing investigation and finally secure the Ohio Historical Society’s approval for a historic marker.

While ground-penetrating radar, a technology suggested by Society member Greg Shipley, was being used to search for more graves, the only tree on the burial site, a massive burr oak estimated to be 179 years old, was torn from the ground during a violent storm, bringing to the surface a tangle of roots and human bones, certifying that more graves did, indeed, exist.

One of the burials of record, believed to still be interred in the Old Grave Yard, is that of Elizabeth Kenton, eight-year-old daughter of celebrated pioneer scout Simon Kenton.

Also, some early settlers of the area; unidentified soldiers from the War of 1812; Captain Arthur Thomas and his son who died at the hands of Native Americans, and four children of a Bell family, killed in a tornado, are thought to be still buried there.

Desirous of providing a lasting memento of the marker unveiling and to honor those for whom the Old Grave Yard remains a final resting place, CCHC commissioned woodworker Doug Dill to design and handcraft a limited number of commemorative paperweights of wood salvaged from the uprooted oak, faithful sentinel of the burial grounds for almost 200 years.

Dill said the paperweights will be replicas of 19th century headstones with engraved brass plates bearing the memorial text. They will be sold for $15 each at the marker ceremonies. Paperweights can be reserved by calling the Historical Society Museum, 937-653-6721.
 
In case of rain, the marker ceremonies will be moved to the Historical Society Museum, 809 East Lawn Avenue.

                                  COMPLETE TEXT OF THE HISTORIC MARKERS
Side one:
                                  OLD GRAVE YARD
 

In 1805, a burial ground was dedicated to Champaign County at the intersection of Ward and Kenton Streets, which was then at Urbana’s town limits. It remained open until 1856. 

Among those interred there was Elizabeth Kenton, eight-year-old daughter of Simon Kenton. 

When she died in 1810, Kenton, the county jailer, was forbidden from crossing out of the town limits due to his unpaid debts. After following the funeral procession as far as he could, he watched Elizabeth’s burial from across the street. Also buried there were unknown soldiers from the War of 1812, Captain Arthur Thomas and son who were killed by Native Americans in August, 1813, four Bell children, who died in the tornado of March 22, 1830, and numerous early settlers of Champaign County. Many, but not all, were reinterred and rest in Oak Dale Cemetery.

Side two:

                                  WAR COUNCIL OF 1812

To confirm that the Treaty of Greenville would be upheld, Ohio Governor Return J. Meigs called a council with Native Americans June 6-9, 1812. He sought approval to cross native land when marching to Canada and to ensure their alliance with the United States against the British.

Among the tribes and chiefs credited for attending were the Shawnee (Black Hoof, Captain Lewis), Wyandot (Tarhe, Roundhead), Seneca (Civil John), and Mingo. General William Hull, Colonels
MacArthur, Cass and Findley, the Wyandot interpreter Isaac and Simon Kenton are also thought to have attended. Blockhouses were erected along Hull’s Trace for storage and the protection of local settlers. The actual location of the gathering was on the rise about 100 yards southwest of the Old Grave Yard.

Mary Keokee Monroe 1849~1866 WOODLAND CEMETERY, CLEVELAND OHIO

Remembering the Old Graveyard in Urbana, Ohio -- Ohio Historical Marker Dedication - Saturday, June 7, 2014 in Urbana, Ohio

Sharing the following announcement and news story (with permission) by the Champaign County Historical Society that appears in their current May, 2014 newsletter:

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SOURCE:  ChroniclingAmerica.loc.gov

URBANA UNION

Wednesday, August 16, 1871

Written for the Urbana Union

"Cursed Be He Who Disturbs My Bones."

—Shakspeare. [sic]

(Transcribed by Linda Jean Limes Ellis – May 13, 2014

(Typed as written with minor corrections)

*******

            The grave-yard to be plowed up. The bones of our citizens and the soldiers of 1812 to be desecrated. Shakspeare's [sic] anathama [sic] "cursed be he who disturbs my bones,” has lost its terror with our City Dads.

            Shade of Frederic Gump (sp)!  Rise in your revolutionary habilliments [sic] and shake your gory locks, whitened by the frosts of 107 winters, in the face of him who first dares attempt the cursed deed.

            If the tax payers of this city will supinely submit to be plucked to the sum of nearly $50,000 a year, in support of a city government, it is no reason why all the old inhabitants, who carved it out of a wilderness, should be shocked and outraged by the acts of those who now claim to be the City Council.

            Some few weeks ago a petition signed by a few citizens living on Ward street, and who are greatly mistaken as to its ultimate benefit to them, or the effect of the measure upon the value of their property, presented it to the Council asking the running of said street through the old town grave-yard, upon which appropriate action was had, and reference made to the City Board of Public Improvements.  The Board after advising themselves of the merits of the proposition, very sensibly determined to report adversely.  The ring watching the Movement suddenly discovered danger, and changed their tactics, and procured and presented a new petition against the remonstrance on file with the city Clerk, of all the land owners east of Sycamore Street, and some in other localities, asking the extension to East Lawn Avenue, and manipulated the Council into the belief that their former reference was not lawful, and that the Council itself must act directly in premises. 

            This new phase of the proposition was promptly met by the presentation of a remonstrance, signed by about 225 of our best citizens, obtained without any general canvass, which no doubt would more than have doubled it.  Instead of treating it with that due respect which our City Government owes to its constituency.  The people who signed it were insulted by a prominent member, by the gross and burly remark that such an expression amounted to nothing, that signatures to such papers were mere commonplace things, that as many or more could be obtained favoring the petition, and it was consigned  without action as is usual with the Council, to a pigeon-hole in the City Clerk's office, where I hope it will remain without mutilation as a memento for the use of the Centennial meeting to be held by an adjournment on the 15^th of March, 1916, as dodge number ONE.

            The opponents to the measure of running the street through the grave-yard, after having been thus foiled and repulsed, obtained signatures of nearly all the old settlers of the town to a memorial respectfully addressed to the Council, asking it to submit the whole question to the people of all the Wards after 20 days notice, and suspend further action until the people settled it by their votes, which was also carefully read and shared the fate of it predecessor, after refusing to even second the motion of one member to accept the reasonable proposition, it was 4 to 1 ordered on FILE, to be used it is hoped, March 15^th, 1916, as dodge number TWO.

            On the next meeting of the Council the member who was not present at the previous meeting having the fear of the people before him, voluntarily called up the memorial from its perch in the pigeon hole, and obtaining a second he elaborately urged the reasonableness of the proposition and insisted upon a direct vote of Ayes and Nays, which seemed to be waxing too hot to be any longer skulked by some of them, and it became convenient to move an adjournment, which is always convenient and in order, and of course the body dissolved into thin air as a City Council.  This was dodge number THREE, which is also handed over to March 15th, 1916, to be reviewed by the great grand-children of this redoubtable City Council, who no doubt will stare at each other and wonder if they sprung from such *****, such an ancestry.

            During the progress of these interventions of the people to save the old time honored grave-yard, an ordinance was dragging its slimy serpentine length through the regular weekly sessions of the City Council to its third reading, which occurred on the 31st of July 1871, and culminated in the hellish and damnable act of passing the ordinance to decimate the old venerated grave-yard without promoting any public benefit as to travel, transit or drainage.

            Well might Shakspeare [sic] be supposed to have had a prophetic vision of the scenes enacted in our City Council Chamber on the memorable night of July 31st, 1871, when applying his words to other scenes he broke forth substantially in the language "clothed with a little brief authority, they cut such high phantastic tricks before high Heaven, as made angels weep!"  If departed spirits really take cognizance of the acts of men, it would not require any great draw on the imagination to suppose that, that portion of the angelic hosts, whose earthly tabernacles were reposing in the old Urbana grave-yard, would have good reason to indulge in the weeping mood, in view of the bull-headed stubbornness with which they resisted popular appeals of the people, both in the City and the surrounding country.  Can this monstrosity be submitted to by the great masses of our population?  Time will tell.

             But there is another phase to this uncalled for proceedings, besides the burkeing [sic] of the bones of the dead by municipal hyenas.  It destroys a munificent grant entered of record, to the PEOPLE from the original proprietor of the town which was intended to remain intact for generation after generation, the whole of which as now inclosed, measures in a square with avenues around it, not less than one and five eight [sic] acres of land now near the center of the City, and which in the times to come, will be worth as I have said elsewhere, not less than $20,000 and may at small expense be made a beautiful place of resort and promenade for our people of the present day. Shall this all be sacrificed to gratify the senseless whims of a few persons owning property on Ward street?  They invested their money in it with a full knowledge of all the facts, they knew it abutted a grave-yard, dating back a full half century. Have they any right to complain and ask such a public sacritlee (sp?)?  Certainly not.

            I will conclude by saying to the Urbana public, that I expect at another time to lift the vail, and expose enormity of the measure upon them as tax payers, and point out that element in the Council that should be held responsible for it.  I have taken notes “and faith I’ll print ‘em.”

Wm. Patrick