Here in southern Wisconsin the hardwoods are reaching peak color, and although the weather is gradually getting more brisk each day, it is still a fine time to take a stroll at Oak Hill; just dress for the weather. This walk is in the same general area as the previous one, to the right of the large road running uphill to the right of the chapel. All these folks also met quite unfortunate ends. As you search for these stones, keep your eyes open for other interesting sights around you, other monuments, the colorful trees, and perhaps some deer, fox or turkeys.
1. Eunice Wilcox (block 73) You are looking for a red granite headstone. Eunice married four times, and her last husband, Charles Wilcox, was her undoing. She had some money, and he wanted to borrow it for investing in a real estate deal downtown. When she refused there was a fight, and he strangled her. He stayed with her remains several days before drinking poison and turning on the illuminating gas. He is buried in an unmarked grave in the area behind the chapel. She rests here with a previous husband.
2. Stephen Spaulding (block 75)Mr. Spaulding's final resting place is unmarked, but there are several other nice family monuments on the plot. I like the one featuring a shock of wheat. Stephen Spaulding was a jeweler who had a shop in Janesville a number of years. He moved away, and after having suffered all manner of health and job difficulties, moved back to town. He went to his daughter Clara's grave at Oak Hill and committed suicide.
3. Townsend Sager (block 78) The headstone you want in a small flat gray granite stone. Mr. Sager was driving north on Milton Avenue with a wagon load of fertilizer for his farm when he was stricken by a fatal heart attack and fell to the road. Several people rushed to his aid, but were unable to save him.
4. David Burrus (block 78) The Burrus family monument is a good sized gray granite stone. The boy's father was a local dentist and inventor, with a colorful personality. But the family was visited by tragedy more than once. David's two sisters perished in a diphtheria epidemic, his older brother was convicted of killed two women and later drowned, and he was killed when he tried to catch a ride on a train with two of his friends, and was caught between the cars, and fatally injured.
5. Lucy Smith, Elizabeth Strunk Ripley, Lulu Hanson (block 82) Look for a tall gray granite obelisk under trees. This story is well known by local residents. Elizabeth Strunk drowned in the Rock River trying to save her cousin Lucy Smith and Lucy's young friend Lulu Hanson when they were caught in the river's currents. All three are buried together in this family plot.
6. Charles Antisdel (block 82) Nearby you will find a slightly shorter gray monument to the Antisdel family. Charles has a smaller headstone as well. Many of the people buried at Oak Hill were the victims of train accidents, but railroad employees and other folks, Charles died in Kempton, Wisconsin, the victim of a train wreck.
7. Thomas Bennett (block 91) The Bennett family monument is a newer red granite stone with three names engraved upon it. Thomas Bennett was a well-known conductor on the Chicago and North Western line. He was accidentally thrown from the train when the train slowed to cross the Fox River near Chicago, and cars bumped into one another. His body was found in the river a day later, with bruises on the back of his head.
8. Edna Conrad (block 95) Edna's headstone is a low white marble block. She was married to William Conrad, a well-known local grocer. Her obituary says she was sick for three weeks before dying of ptomaine poisoning - what we think of today as food poisoning.
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