You are right, the name of the cemetery that I and local folks around here call the
Waggoner Cemetery, located along the northern edge of section 4 of Hilyard
Township, should be spelled Wagner not Waggoner. I guess evolution over the past
177 years changed our local dialect to that pronunciation. All the Wagner’s
buried in this cemetery has the name Wagner on the tombstones.
Peter
Wagner and William R. Rhodes were the first two settlers that entered land in
this locality in section 33 of Polk Township in 1835. Both families previously
lived in the forks of the Wood River in Madison County before moving to Macoupin
County. In the summer of 1834, Peter Wagner and Wm. Rhodes, close friends, along
with their sons, came up here into this area of Township 9, Range 8, now known
as Polk Township. They picked out land and both erected cabins south of the
Macoupin Creek in section 33. Peter Wagner was a veteran of the war of 1812, and
well known as an Indian fighter while living in Madison County. After building
their cabins and laying out their farms that summer, they returned to Madison
County to spend the winter with their wives and families. In the following
spring, both Peter Wagner and Wm. Rhodes entered the land here in Polk Township
with the Government. Peter Wagner entered 160 acres in the northeast quarter of
Section 33. He had built his cabin in the edge of the woods and a little over
one half of his grant was actually prairie, he being one of the first to enter
prairie ground in this area. I now own 140 acres of this farm.
William
Rhodes land grant where he built his cabin was in the east one-half of the
north-west quarter (80 acres). His grant is a part of the farm where I live on
the west side of the now Shipman Blacktop Road. Peter Wagner’s 160 acres was on
the east side of the now Shipman Blacktop Road. Both cabins were about
two-thirds of a quarter mile apart and you could say they were in hollering
distant from each other. Their closest neighbors at that time were two families,
the Hilyard and the Gray families living several miles southeast of where
Plainview is now. From Peter Wagner, the name of Wagner’s Prairie was given to
the prairie stretching from south of the Macoupin Creek to several miles
southeast of Plainview and to about 4 miles west to the Harmony church area.
Incidentally, this area north of Plainview also was later called North Bend as
the Macoupin Creek made a north bend in its path dissecting across the township.
Shortly later, another friend of the Wagner and Rhodes families, William
Pruitt and family moved here from Madison County and settled on an adjoining 160
acres of property in section 28. He too had been an Indian fighter while living
in Madison County. This property, he entered with the government in 1839. Many
of the children of these three large neighboring families intermarried and many
are now buried in the Wagner cemetery.
Jacob D. Wagner, an adult son of
Peter Wagoner, entered 80 acres of land from the Government in 1839 at the north
edge of Hilyard in section 4 and this is where the Wagner/ Waggoner cemetery is
now. Jacob married Elizabeth Deck and after a few years, they moved to Dent
County, Missouri where Mrs. Wagner passed away a few years later. He and his
children moved back here. He then married a woman from near Gillespie, Illinois,
and he farmed near Gillespie. Upon both of their deaths, they were both interred
in the Wagner Cemetery. Likewise, his son Jacob II and his wife Maud were also
buried later in the Wagner Cemetery.
I see in the history write-up in the
1879 Macoupin County History book by Brinks, McDonough & Co, Peter Wagner’s name
is spelled as Wagoner. In my abstract of the farm, it is also spelled as Wagoner
and another place as Waggoner with the double g. You can see how the name is
changed verbally and then written as it sounded.
Another interesting note
a little off the subject but telling how names are often changed verbally is how
years ago people living in the Macoupin creek area mispronounced the word
“Ma-coup-in” as Ma-goup-in”. I was in high school before I learned of the
correct pronouncement.
When the Public Work Affair inventoried the Wagner
Cemetery during the 1930’s Depression giving unemployed people part time jobs,
they listed the cemetery as laid out in 1846 and stated the first burial was
Peter Wagner who died in 1846. However, there is a tombstone listing a James
Hallford burial in Dec. of 1839, while Jacob Wagner owned the property. Mrs.
Hallford maiden name was Pruitt, and the Hallford’s and Pruitt’s share the same
tombstone. The Baird family at one time owned forty acres just at the east edge
of the cemetery and that is how the cemetery at one time was referred to as the
Baird family. There are no tombstones showing the name of Baird. Unless some
family members are buried in the unknown list of unmarked gravesites. The
Baird’s at one time owned considerable land around Plainview and later settled
in Carlinville and around Bunker Hill. There is a cemetery near Bunker Hill
called the Baird cemetery. I do not know if that cemetery was named after that
family or someone else named Baird.
While the Hallford family owned the
property in the mid-1840’s where the cemetery is now, he had the cemetery
recorded at the Macoupin County courthouse. This cemetery consist of slightly
over one acre with approximately 100 names that are listed on gravestones. There
are many indentations in the earth where other graves have been and are
unmarked. Also remains of the bottom portion of long lost tombstones. Rule of
thumb usually suggest there are as many unmarked family graves as marked on
tombstones in these old cemeteries. I have been able to add a few more names
buried there in unmarked graves as I read the old newspapers and find
information of burials locally. At one time, this cemetery was locally called
and was referred to in the newspapers as the Dorman cemetery. The Dorman family
owned and lived on the property across the road on the north side of the
township road.
Now some more interesting history about this cemetery.
The Dorman family owned the property across the road from the Wagner cemetery
and when they transferred the property to new owners, the abstract gave the
property dimensions of the Dorman land with the exception of the Dorman cemetery
located across the road from the other cemetery. Whenever I asked people it
there was another cemetery located there, they would tell me, “No, there were
never a cemetery there; the cemetery is on the south side of the road.”
In 1851 and 1852 as the Alton-Springfield railroad was being built through
Hilyard and Polk townships, the cholera epidemic was raging at its worst across
the state as well as all over the other U.S. states. The Irish potato famine was
taking place in Ireland at the same time and people from that country were
fleeing from Ireland and coming to the United States as well as migrating to
Australia. Thousands and thousands and thousands of these poor class starving
Irish were coming to this country and taking any low paying job available just
to have work and a paycheck to survive. Railroad companies would meet the ships
as these people disembarked in New York, Pennsylvania and New Orleans, hire
these men (many as young as 14 years of age), and transport them to work
wherever they were building a railroad. If you wonder how these immigrants could
afford the passage across the sea to the United States, many of the railroads
hired the men in Ireland and transported them across the ocean. We also learn
that many of the ships coming to New Orleans, were crossing the ocean to New
Orleans with empty cargoes and would haul these people free of charge as they
needed the weight of these people to use or serve as ballast in the ships. The
ships were coming to New Orleans where they would be loaded with shipments of
bales of cotton to take back to Europe. At New Orleans, it was easy to recruit
the needed laborers and transport them up the Mississippi river to Alton to work
at building this railroads as well as other railroads in the central states.
As the railroad was being built through this area, the raging cholera
epidemic was at its worst. Sanitation was very poor in the work camps and all
kinds of disease were prevalent. The year 1851, weather-wise, was a very wet
year and the dampness, flies and insects were terrible, easily promoting
spreading all kinds of disease. In 1851, ten percent of the local population in
Carlinville died from the Cholera. Records state that 93% of any one contacting
cholera died from the effects. Death often came in a short matter of hours.
Back in 1952, as I was getting interested in local history, two elderly men
in their possible eighties, that lived near Plainview, (a Mr. Emmett Hurry and
Osa Wadsworth), told me that during the Cholera epidemic while the railroad was
being built, several Irish laborers working at construction of the railroad
quickly died and they were buried in the north-east corner of the Wagner
cemetery and that was the reason no one else ever were buried in that corner of
the cemetery. This early cemetery was just a quarter of a mile from where they
were working at building the railroad and being close by was the ideal location
to bury these laborers.
Then around 1975, while doing some local history
research, I talked with another two other elderly gentlemen, one living north
and the other living west of Macoupin Station, Dave Morris and Jim Pursey. They
both, while interviewing these men, told me that in the winter of 1851-1852, the
railroad had a large tent campsite for the workers a little north of Macoupin
Station. This camp was at a base of a hill in the Macoupin bottom on the east
side along where they were digging through embankments of location before
railroad tracks could be laid. Slips, wheelbarrows, picks and shovels were the
mode of earth removal. When hardpan earth was encountered, then dynamite was
used to break up the densely compacted earth. The hill and trees at this camp
location gave protection of cold and north-west and western winter winds. One of
the elderly gents told me he understood that at least 200 of these laborers were
cholera victims and were buried on the hill along the railroad there. He said of
many of the graves at one time, he claimed he had seen remains of small wood
crosses on the grave or sometime a small chunk of rock marked the grave. (I have
my doubts if he really saw this.) The other person said he thought there were
more likely about 70 laborers buried there. I walked down the railroad at that
time and found this hill which was covered with tall prairie grass and stomped
around in the tall grass but could not find any traces of remaining wooden
crosses nor rocks. Of course any wood markings had long ago either rotted or was
burnt up in fires along the railroad set by sparks from the steam locomotives.
William McClain (now retired) who lives in Carlinville has now gotten
interested in the building of the early railroad and all the cholera deaths that
occurred. He has been doing extensive research but there does not seem to be any
railroad construction records that can be located anymore other than a
contractors report from here that he may have to shut down for a period because
so many of his laborers were expiring from the cholera. There remains, no hiring
records, no payroll records, nor names of any deaths that occurred during the
construction of the railroad. Last fall Mr. McClain invited two fellows from
Monroe county that have been dowsing (witching) for unmarked graves for many of
the past numerous years to come up here and aid in finding these unmarked
graves. Their work is virtually professional at finding these unmarked graves.
By the use of copper or steel witching rods, they are able to find where the
earth has been disturbed and a body had been buried, even years and years ago,
and whether the person is a male or female and they even find smaller child
graves. They can even tell the length of the grave when dug, giving the idea of
the height of the person buried there. Children graves are very short and
usually by the length of the grave will usually denote the approximately age of
the child buried there.
When these two men arrived, we went to the Wagner
cemetery and they were able to locate nine rows of graves with 19 burials in
each row. Each apparent grave was spaced three feet apart. All burials showed by
witching as being male. These were in the northeast corner of the cemetery as
tradition had told. We had no idea that many of men had been buried there. While
they were witching here, I mentioned that I had a farm abstract mentioning the
Dorman cemetery supposedly across the township road. By witching over there
across the road, we found another 72 unmarked graves supposedly containing all
males and at the west edge of these burials found a family of four consisting of
one male, one female and two children. It makes you wonder who this family was.
Could they have been Dorman’s? Who knows! Also under the oiled township road, we
found another 48 unmarked graves of all males. In all we figured there were, at
least 272 men buried here who probably died of Cholera. Just think, that the
laborers that suddenly died here had family and relatives elsewhere and in
Ireland that never knew what became of their love ones.
Now, Mr. McClain
and myself along with our witching rods and marking flags went looking for the
winter railroad camp that had been located north of Macoupin Station that was at
this protective south facing hillside. While McCain was searching the hillside
by dowsing/witching, he found a large numerous amount of burials on that
hillside. As I witched along the bottomland at the base of the hill, I was able
to find three rows of possible graves and gave up after counting after finding
115 possible burials because I was into poison ivy and scrub brush. The
bottomland at this site is high enough that under a regular flood the flooding
water does not reach into this area. This made an ideal campsite. Then to our
surprise, we were able to find by witching the outline of quite a few shanties
or tents a little further out in the non-flooding bottomland. These shanties or
tents were from 33’ to 36’ in length and usually 24’ in width. Each find were
with about six feet between each of these shelters. Now we are planning to go
back, take measurements and pin point locations of everything, and attempt to
map the area. I am wondering if we will not come up with the possibility of
nearly three to four hundred gravesites. Where the shelter buildings were, that
area is now planted in corn which is less than a foot tall. We want to get all
these measurements in the cornfield before the corn gets much higher so we can
see where we are working.
I have had a feeling that there is another
location a mile or more south of Macoupin Station where there might be more
cholera victims buried. We also went there and by witching found ten or more
rows of graves with15 each possible burial at that location. Here there were
also four possible female burials. The railroad furnished the meals to the
laborers and hired many husbands and wives to do the cooking and serving of the
food. Because of a locked building on this site, we were not able to fins how
many possible graves could be under this building. More searching will be done
there later when we can get inside the locked building.
All this is quite
a find of forgotten history. Bill McClain is planning of writing a book
containing information about the building of the railroad, the Irish laborers
and cholera deaths telling what we have been finding and from the extensive
research he has been doing. This should turn out to be very interesting.
Presently now, we are trying to locate anyone that had Irish ancestors that was
employed as laborers in building this railroad then originally known as
Sangamon-Alton Railroad (later Chicago-Alton Railroad and now as Union Pacific
Railroad) upon coming to this country. If any of these descendants know any of
the details of their ancestors working here during this period, we would
appreciate if they would contact us. Bill McClain, Carlinville, Illinois or
myself, Jim frank, Plainview, Illinois. My e-mail address is
frank10@frontiernet.net.
In the past few years, I have written several
booklets about the local history of Shipman and Shipman township, Plainview and
Hilyard township and Polk township including Macoupin Station and Beaver Dam
Park. The modest income from these booklets I have donated to the Macoupin
County Historical Society and the Shipman Farm and Home Museum in Shipman. These
books are for sale in the gift shop at both of these places along with also for
sale at the Shipman Bank.
This narrative is quite long and a good place
to end this account in local history. I am so pleased to be able to reveal this
long lost history that has taken place in this area in the past that has long
been forgotten and is no longer knowledgeable and now forgotten as this past
history took place nearly a hundred sixty years ago. In addition, we forget the
numerous deaths by diseases that were commonly taking place along with the
hardships endured by our ancestors back in those days when little knowledgeable
medical help was available.
There will be much more to reveal later as we
continue our research on this venture. Many, many hours and days have already
been spent researching old newspapers files in Springfield and Alton and other
speculations.
Thank you Gloria Frazier for asking me to write something
about the history of the Wagner/Baird/Dorman/ Wagoner/Waggoner cemetery and
about the Irish railroad laborers that lost their lives during the 1851-1852
cholera epidemic when so many people residing in this county died in this
terrible pandemic.
Written and contributed by Jim Frank
1) Peter Wagner was the son of John Barnabas Wagner and his wife
Dorothea. Barnabas, as he was better known as, and Dorothea had at least
5 children - Peter who married Elizabeth Deck; Ann Catherine or
Catherine Anna who married Samuel Henry Rhodes; Jacob who married E. A.
Nancy Moore; Daniel who married Fanny Claxton; and John who married
Rachael Moore. I mention this because after John Barnabas Wagner died,
Dorothea married Martin Pruitt who lost his 1st wife Mary in 1806.
According to a late Wagner family researcher there were several
Pruitt/Wagner marriages and seems that most if not all ended up in
divorce. The divorce between Martin and Dorothea was so bitter that both
families were fighting in the court room. Being that Madison Co was not
yet formed, the divorce was held in St Clair County (East St Louis). I
have not seen the divorce file but reportedly is one of the first ones
in St Clair County. For the most part the Pruitt's and the Wagner's kept
their distance from one another for many years.
2) James
Hallford's name should be James Haliford. He was married to the former
Mary Hester Stout daughter of James Abel Stout and his wife the former
Abigail Holloway. She married Amos Pruitt (note - no middle name) on 20
Feb 1841. Amos had lost his 1st wife Eliza on 5 Feb 1840. In addition to
Amos' six children by Eliza and Mary's two children by James Haliford,
they had 11 children making the family count 19. Some of the Pruitt
burials are those related to Amos and Mary, however, there are some who
are related to Amos through one of his uncles. Sometime between 1856
(birth of their last child) and 1860 (Amos' 3rd marriage date), Amos and
Mary were divorced. It must have been bitter with even the older
children taking sides. The divorce file is in Jersey County records.
Amos fought to get custody of the minor children. In the end, the
younger ones lived with Mary until they were of an age where they could
decide with which parent to live. The older ones who could choose lived
with Amos and the others joined them when their age permitted it. Amos'
daughter-in-law Nancy Melvina Pruitt (my 2nd gr-grandmother) was a
witness for Amos.
3) William Pruitt who is mentioned as moving
his family to Macoupin County is the uncle of Amos Pruitt (mentioned
above). William died in 1839. Most of his family married in and lived in
Greene County. He is found in the 1830 Greene County IL census. There is
no other William Pruitt who is old enough to have had the capability to
purchase land. From what I can find two of William's sons did die in
Macoupin County and their probate records are on file in Carlinville. It
was these probate records that I was able to determine their
descendants. In fact 3 of William's 4 sons married Ambrose girls and an
Ambrose family researcher believes these girls were sisters.
Contributed by Debbi Geer
Macoupin County ILGenWeb Copyright
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