Tombstone Tuesday - November 10, 2009

Nicholas Murray son of John and Alice Murray

died June 27, 1868 age 28 years old.

This is another beautiful metal “White Granite” tombstone at Transfiguration Catholic Cemetery in Lake County, Illinois. The Murray family was a large family in the area during the Civil War time period. I am not sure if there are other family members buried there too. I took this picture because I like the stone. I did a small amount of research once I got home.  Next time I am in the area I will stop again to see.

Hidden in plain view …

I have searched and I searched, I just can not find Susannah after 1870! In the federal census that year, she lived in Lafayette County with Joseph and Catherine, her children, Martha and John is listed with them too. Henry Charles is with William and Oella Smith, who live next door. While I was search for Susannah, I did find that Martha had married Henry Hause on June 14, 1874 though the name is spelled Hauss in the marriage records. She is 18 years old when she married. There is little information available about her because she is dead 3 short years later. I am looking for an Obit for her but so far I have not found one.

Margaret is also pretty elusive. Since Susannah counted all of her children in 1860, I spent years looking for Margaret in the decade of 1860-1870. Every Margaret in Allen and surrounding counties was a suspect but I just could not find her. During one of my visits to the Nine Mile area, I decided to check out two older cemeteries which were very close to the Nine Mile Church. It was out of curiosity more than anything that I chose to visit them. Maybe, just maybe, I would find Susannah buried there and if not her maybe someone else!

The first cemetery was West on Winter Rd. I found it the first time I visited Nine Mile because I turned left to find the church when I should have turned right. I had stopped and looked during my first visit but I had no idea who I was even looking for. The cemetery is called Albright Cemetery and has about 25 graves. The names are familiar and all of the people buried there are from early Allen County family names that I recognize from early census records.

The second cemetery was called Brenton Chapel Cemetery. It is located on Cloverdale Road, around the corner from the two cemeteries on Winter Road. Many of the names on the tombstones there are familiar old Allen County names too. I found that Letisha Davis was buried there. She is the wife of Benjamin C Davis and died on November 15, 1851. I recognize the “Davis” name because Benjamin was one of the founding members of the Nine Mile Church. And 1851 was about the time that they started the church, I had thought. I took a mental note to check this out when I got home.

When I arrived home, I went in search of Benjamin Davis. It took some time because he was not listed as Benjamin, eventually I found him listed as Ben C. Davis and he is remarried. His new wife is Margaret! “Could it be her?” I thought. With further research, I found that Margaret Smith had married Benjamin C. Davis in 1851, one year after the 1850 census and a few months after his first wife’s death. Benjamin and Latisha had 6 children and Margaret would be the one to finish raising them. Benjamin and Letisha’s children were; William (1831), Mahala (1832), Sarah Ann (1833), Adaline (1835), Columbus (1838), and Betsey( 1843).

Margaret would have her first son, James in 1853. Margaret and Benjamin would have six children in all: James (1853), Joseph H. (1856), Martha (1857), Mary Davis (1860), Lucinda Margaret (1863) and Elnora Davis (1866). It is no wonder that I could not find Margaret. First Susannah made me think that she had not gotten married until after 1860 and she appears to have died by 1867, I say “appears to have” because I can not find where she is buried either. Her last daughter Elnora was born and that is the “last known” event I can find in her life. I am thinking that she may have died giving birth to her. By the 1870 Federal Census, Benjamin is listed with his third wife Hannah E. Davis. Hannah would raise Margaret’s children and have a couple of her own.

After finding Margaret and her children, I was able to find that Martha Davis married William Putt. The Putt Family was three doors down from the Davis’s in the 1860 census. Martha, her husband and two of their children are buried in the Nine Mile Cemetery and the Putt family members were long standing members of the Nine Mile Church. Martha Putt and her children are named on the Quilt which hangs in the lower level of the Church.

I have spent time the last few days trying to find out where any of the Davis children were buried in Indiana assuming that Margaret would be with them but I still can not find her.

Tombstone Tuesday - Door County Tombstones

Northeast Wisconsin is the largest settlement of Walloon speaking Belgians in the United States. Walloon is a French dialect from southern Belgium and Flemish, a Dutch dialect from northern Belgium and is Belgium’s other official Language. In the late 1840’s the economic conditions in Northern Europe took a downturn. With this economic downturn coupled with the potato famine which intensified food shortages, families were forced to leave the Belgium country side for the city in hopes of finding work. But upon their arrival, they were to find that factories had no jobs.

Across the Atlantic conditions were very different, so the Belgians crossed the ocean and settled in Wisconsin. They would arrive in Sheboygan area near the end of July in 1853. Soon after their arrival it would become clear that they would need to go further north to find available land to settle on. In the early months of being in America while the men were looking for land to purchase, one of the children in the Phillip Hannon family died.

This child’s death caused the settlers to seek out a French Catholic Church for a funeral. They would go to Green Bay where Father Edouard Daems was visiting the St. John’s priest at the time of the funeral. Father Daems was a Crozier priest who had been born and raised in Belgium. He spoke Walloon and he was also the priest of a new Catholic church at Bay Settlement, a small community just northeast of Green Bay. Since practically all the pioneers were followers of that faith, they followed Father Daems and settled near by.

They settled in the counties of Brown, Kewaunee and Door counties near the water of Green Bay. Land would be purchased for $1.25 and acre as promised when they were still in Belgium. For the next ten years many Belgium immigrants would settle in the area of Door County which is known as Namur, Wisconsin today. Many of the original wooden structures of the Belgian Americans were destroyed by a firestorm which swept through the area in 1871. A few of the stone houses remain but you will see the more common red brick house built in the 1880’s. This cemetery is located on State Highway 57 , 0.2 of a mile east of county Highway N. It is known as Our Lady of the Snows Cemetery which is located adjacent to the red Brick Church of the same name.

These tombstones are grave markers from the early settlers in Namur, Wisconsin. Namur is named after an area of Belgium similar to a state or province near the French border which these settlers originated from. Upon investigation, I learned that some of the buildings in this settlement were moved to allow additional lanes to be built in the highway. I am not certain if this is the original location of the burial grounds or if it was moved here. I found it interesting how they placed these stones. When ever I have seen them like this before, it usually meant that the remains where moved. Most of the stones are written in what at first looked like French to me. Having taken French in High School, I was able to translate some of it. It would be through my investigation that I would learn what the language really was.

I just knew the first time I saw this cemetery that there had to be a story behind it. It has been fun investigating it. My husband and I like to go camping in Door County in the fall. We have not driven by this cemetery for a few years because we have been taking a different route. We will have to go visit the cemetery again. Now that I have learned so much about the Belgian’s who settled in this area, I will need to be more observant. Eighty percent of the land originally settled by these Belgian families’, remains in these same families today. They were known to build small chapels on their property. These chapels are never locked and open to all. Many of these Chapels are lovingly maintained by descendents of the families who built them. The Belgian Wayside Chapels are evidence of the historic faith of these Belgian settlers and the determination of their modern descendents to preserve the culture of their families.

Sources of information are:
“ Door County Living” by Katie Lott Schnorr

“ Belgian Settlement in Wisconsin Marker “ from HMdb.org or the Historical Marker Database.

“Aux Premiers Belges : Remembering Northeast Wisconsin’s First Belgian Settlers”

written by Cletus Delvaux