Chill at Oak Hill - October 2018 Walking Tours

Four years ago I turned my twilight October walk, Chill at Oak Hill over to the Rock County Historical Society, and the tour continues to be very popular.  This year participants will also see the completely refurbished non-denominational chapel.  The cemetery is especially pretty in October, and the shadows at 5 p.m. provide a seasonal atmosphere.

This year there will be nine tours, Wednesday through Friday, 5-6 p.m., the first three weeks of October.  The nominal fee of $10 supports the historical society.  Tours will not be cancelled unless there is heavy rain and lightning, and if that happens, participants will have a chance to sign up for a different tour.  If there is light rain or mist, bring rain gear.

You need to reserve a ticket in advance from the Rock County Historical Society, as tours are limited to 30 people each night.

This year the theme is different from past years, Untimely Ends and Deadly Diagnoses.  The walk highlights some causes of death that are, thankfully, not very common any more.

The link to the historical society page is here.  Go to the "Upcoming Events" section near the bottom of the page, then look for "All Events."  Then you can select the date you want to attend.

History Camp Youth Tour

I was given the opportunity to lead a tour of Oak Hill for Janesville's History Camp, run by the School District of Janesville for students in 5th through 8th grade.  It was a beautiful June day, and we were lucky to be able to start the tour inside the newly renovated chapel, where I explained a little of the history of the cemetery and of the chapel, and paid special attention to the imagery on the stained glass windows, which is repeated in many headstones and monuments.

This is the script I used, and I've included some photos of images on headstones.  I think it would be easy enough for anyone to do this walk on their own, especially if you download a map from the city website.  The entire walk should take about an hour.
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Welcome, Oak Hill, History Campers!  I am Sherry, and I’m here to teach you a little about the history of Oak Hill cemetery, and take you on a walking tour to visit some interesting headstones and monuments, and also to help you understand what some of the symbols carved on those headstones mean.  Have any of you visited this cemetery before?  It covers about 90 acres, and contains the graves of more than 24,000 people.

Who knows when Wisconsin became a state?  The answer is 1848.  Oak Hill cemetery was started in 1851, not very long after Wisconsin became a state.  Actually, Oak Hill was not Janesville’s first cemetery.  There was once a cemetery where Jefferson Park is now, not far from the Rock County Court House.  The earliest non-Native American settlers mostly came here from states like New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, looking for land.  Those early settlers used the first cemetery.  But by 1851 Janesville had grown so much that the city government decided they needed to build a new bigger high school on the land where the cemetery was, so they dug everyone up and carried the bodies across town to the new cemetery outside the city limits, Oak Hill.  As you can imagine, not everyone was thrilled to have their relatives dug up and moved, but the new cemetery was a better place than the old one in the middle of the city, and Janesville needed a centrally located high school, so it was done.

For years and years the cemetery was run by the Oak Hill Cemetery Association, and they sold all the plots, put in fences and roads and gardens, cut the grass, and in 1900 built the chapel, which was a place to have funerals.  Sometimes, when the ground was frozen hard in the winter, caskets were stored in the basement until spring when a grave could be dug.  There was a trap door in the floor of the chapel and a sort of elevator operated by pulleys to bring up the coffin.  Anyway, a few years ago the Cemetery Association was disbanded, and the city of Janesville took over running the cemetery.  They run it today.

The chapel is interesting.  The plans were drawn up by a local architect, a man named Sutton Norris.  It was built of local limestone with a slate roof, and had large gothic style stained glass windows, including a round rosette window over the front doors.  There was a circular driveway in front, and a fountain.  A little over ten years after the chapel was built, the Cemetery Association added a red brick covered porch, so that horse drawn wagons could pull up to the front steps out of bad weather.  Eventually the porch became unsafe and had to be removed. 

In fact the whole chapel became quite run down over time.  Many of the windows were damaged or broken entirely out, the wood trim inside was painted over and the plaster was peeling.  The light fixtures were broken, and little by little people stopped using the chapel for funerals, and even stored maintenance equipment inside.  The city thought it would be too expensive to make the chapel safe and attractive again, and considered tearing it down.  But a local group of volunteers raised money and donated their time and hard work to fix the foundation and roof, strip off the old paint, add new light fixtures, refinish the floors, and completely rebuild the damaged stained glass windows.  They also built new front steps and landscaped the front of the building.  Everyone is very excited about how well it turned out, and now the chapel can be used again.

Lets take a special look at the windows, starting with the round one over the front doors.  The original window was destroyed many years ago, and nobody today knew what the design was.  They only knew that the widow was dedicated to an organization called the Knights of Pythias.  So a new widow was designed, using the insignia of the Knights of Pythias.  The letters F,C,B, stand for Friendship, Charity, and Benevolence.  The windows on the sides are gothic style, which simply means they have a pointed arch at the top.  Each one has a small round picture, and each picture stands for a religious idea.  For example, over here is a picture of an anchor.  The idea is that Christ saves people’s souls, just like an anchor saves their lives at sea.  You will see images of anchors on some monuments in the cemetery.  Then there is a sheaf of wheat.  When the chapel was built wheat was the largest crop grown in Wisconsin, but besides that, the idea is that wheat is harvested at the end of the growing season, just as when people reach the end of their lives, God gathers in their souls.  The intertwined letters represent the Greek version of Christ’s name, and the book is supposed to be the Bible.  When you are walking around the cemetery, keep your eyes open for similar images.  Over on the other side we see a dove, which is the symbol of peace, lilies, which represent purity, a lamb which might stand for Christ or for innocence, and a crown and cross, which is the symbol for another organization, the Knights Templar.  But also you know the cross is a Christian symbol, and those who go to heaven are supposed to wear a crown.  Once you are looking for them, you will see many of these symbols, and others, on headstones and monuments.

We are just about ready to go out into the cemetery and take a walk.  But first off, here are some things you will not see - old Puritan headstones with skulls, wings, cherub faces, and hourglasses, the sort of thing you think of associated with Halloween.  Early New England churchyards had those stern sorts of headstones, and they were meant to remind people of the shortness of life, and the need to live a good life before meeting St. Peter at the pearly gates.  They often had verses like this:

Death is a debt
To Nature due
That I have paid
And so must you.

Oak Hill is a newer public burial ground, not associated with any one church.  It was designed to be more modern, outside the city limits, like a pretty country garden.  People were supposed to be able to come here as they might to a park, to look at nature, trees, birds, and flowers.  The headstones are not meant to scare you into behaving well, but rather to express sadness over the loss of a loved relative or friend, and to express hope that his or her soul might be at peace in heaven.  The older headstones and monuments here are easy to spot.  They tend to upright and vertical, and sometimes are quite large.  They might look like a column, or rather like the Washington Monument, a shape called an obelisk.  Some have statues, some look like trees, and at least one is designed to be a raised flower bed.  Let’s get started.  Just remember, watch where you step, and be careful not to step or sit on any of the headstones.

Ithamar Conkey Sloan: vault
Dearborn family: tree and cross (block 16)
Morris Carter Smith: broken column and wreath (block 17)

Gerald Braisher: Packer “G” (block 23)
Odd Fellows area: interlocking rings (explain neighborhoods like Masons, Babyland, veterans)
Sergeant Henry Whittier: eagle and shield, hands, bible, dove, (block 96)
Josie Kimball Conant: rocks, ivy, lily, flower bed (block 97)
GAR Civil War section: military headstone, cannon muzzles and cannon balls
Augusta Tallman Beach: lady with anchor and palm leaves (block 90)
Ephraim Spalding: sheaf of wheat (block 75) - also Ira: anchor
Emma Matilda DeBaun: resting lamb (block 91)
Captain George Bentley: Civil War cap sword and shield (block 91)
Charles A. Brown: Father Time and the Weeping Virgin (block 91)
Thomas Jeff Nichols: railroad car (block 91)
Culver family: tree  (block 83)
Captain William Macloon: sailing ship (block 94)
Alice Crosby: statue of lady, anchor (block 30)

May Tour for the Association for Gravestone Studies

This walk is designed for out-of-town visitors to historic Oak Hill cemetery, who might not recognize local names from city street and county road names or from historic buildings or parks.  The walk is a fairly compact circle walk that showcases selected outstanding monuments and headstones, and mentions some names that might be familiar to people coming from outside of Rock County.  It also shows how the symbols in the chapel stained glass are repeated in some of the headstones and monuments.

Oak Hill cemetery today covers more than 90 acres, and contains more than 24,000 graves, about half its capacity.  The oldest blocks are located on either side of the road that runs uphill to the right of the chapel, and this walk is limited to these areas.  Although there are thousands of interesting monuments dedicated to Rock County residents, there are hundreds of unmarked burials as well, so when you see an open space, do not assume the space is empty.  At Oak Hill it is nearly impossible to avoid treading on the dead.  

There are some fairly famous people buried here, from military heroes from many conflicts such as Medal of Honor recipient James E. Croft, to athletes like race car driver Stan Fox or lightweight boxing champion Sammy Mandell, to politicians such as congressman Stephen Bolles.  There is even the third director of the National Park Service, Arno Cammerer, who has a peak in the Great Smoky Mountains named after him.  Then of course there is George Parker, who founded the world famous Parker Pen Company.

Oak Hill is Janesville's oldest operating burial ground, but not its first.  The first cemetery was located where Jefferson Park is now, in the old Courthouse Hill neighborhood.  This first cemetery served the area's earliest pioneer settlers, most of whom came to Rock County in the 1830's and 1840's, many of them Yankees from New England.  Janesville grew quickly, and by 1851 city leaders decided to build a public high school on the site of the original village cemetery.  This caused an outcry for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that the early settlers buried in that location had to be dug up and carted across town to the new cemetery and re-interred, on land outside the city limits donated by the Rock County Board of Supervisors, Oak Hill.

For many years the Oak Hill Cemetery Association oversaw the operation and maintenance of the burial ground.  They sold lots, paved roads, planted trees and bushes, maintained fences, fountains and gardens, and in 1899-1900 built the chapel, whose renovation is nearly complete.  The cemetery association was dissolved several  years ago, and the cemetery is currently being operated and maintained by the City of Janesville.

Oak Hill is is an example of a rural garden cemetery, similar to, though smaller than cemeteries like Mount Auburn cemetery, near Boston, or Forest Home in Milwaukee.  It was designed to celebrate nature, with roads and paths that follow the contours of the land, landscaping and gardens, and many mature trees.  It was intended to be, besides a place to respectfully bury loved ones, a beautiful public park where people could go to enjoy nature, perhaps even enjoy a picnic.  The monuments and headstones in these rural cemeteries, unlike the practical low maintenance markers popular today, tended to be vertical in a style which demonstrates the popularity of classical Greek and Roman architecture, and all things Egyptian.  So visitors see columns and obelisks, urns, sculptures, and monuments that resemble small temples.  Around the time that Oak Hill was established technical advancements made it easier to carve and transport very hard stone, so while there are many markers carved in soft limestone and marble, we also see many carved in durable granite.

The first stop on the walk is at the hillside vault of the family of Ithamar Conkey Sloan.  Sloan was a congressman who served during Abraham Lincoln's administration, and was associated with the University of Wisconsin law school.  Today there are only two family vaults at Oak Hill, this one and one on the other side of the road, that belonged to the Follansbee family.  Originally these vaults had marble facings, with the names of family members engraved on them, but all these decorations are now gone, either due to weathering or vandalism.  I know of two other vaults here that have been removed.  Before the chapel was built there was a vault for storing bodies in the winter, when the ground was too hard to dig, and the Judd family had a vault, but they tore it down in 1908 and reburied family members in traditional graves which we'll see later.

I.C. Sloan family vault (block 6)

One of the newly restored stained glass windows in the chapel features a lamb and flag, which is a visual representation of Jesus as the Lamb of God.  Most of the lambs on headstones here at Oak Hill are similar to this one for young George Carle.  Lambs can also represent innocence.

George Carle lamb (block 6)

There are two family monuments at Oak Hill which are in the shape of a tree trunk with lopped off limbs representing departed family members.  Monuments like these used to be fairly common, and it's fun to try and spot them in a wooded cemetery.  This one is for the Orin Dearborn family, and it features twining ivy and a cross.  Notice the small carved logs that mark the boundaries of the plot. Orin Dearborn was a Baptist minister here in Janesville.

Rev. Orin Dearborn family tree monument (block 16)

When I take people on tours of the cemetery this headstone is always a favorite.  Gerald "Dad" Braisher was Packer football coach Vince Lombardi's equipment manager.  Mr. Braisher was the person who designed the now famous Packer "G" seen on the helmet here.

Gerald Braisher - Packer "G" logo (block 23)

We're stopping at the family monument of Capt. William Dick Cargill, both because it is a lovely featuring lilies and palm fronds, but because the Cargill name is so widely known.  Captain Cargill was born in the Orkney Islands of Scotland and sailed out of Scotland first, and later out of Long Island.  His wife Edna was reported to have hated the sea, and did not want any of her four sons to grow up near it.  So Capt. Cargill retired to Rock County and became a gentleman farmer, and their sons founded the Cargill grain business that eventually became the agribusiness giant we know today.

Capt. William Dick Cargill family monument (block 23)

This stop at the Kimball family plot is to see the beautiful monument belonging to Josie Kimball Conant.  Her parents ran a successful hardware business here and in Missouri, and she  married Conant in 1879.  Her rustic cradle monument features a rock wall, various flowers, ferns, ivy, and a curbed area that originally held a flower bed.  Watch out walking here - there are woodchuck burrows!

Josie Kimball Conant -  rusticated flower bed (block 97)

This block is dedicated to members of the W.H. Sargent Post No. 20 of the G.A.R., Grand Army of the Republic.   More than 2, 800 Rock County men served in the Civil War, and the local G.A.R. Post was organized in 1881 with 42 charter members, and was named after Lt. W.H. Sargent of the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment who was killed in 1864 in Tennessee.  Some of these stones mark actual burials and some are cenotaphs.  The corners of the block are marked by small cannon muzzles and cannon balls.  Interestingly, W.H. Sargent is buried elsewhere in the cemetery.

W.H. Sargent Post No. 20 G.A.R.  (block 99)

Just a quick stop here to mention on of my favorite unusual names here at Oak Hill.  There are lots of interesting names, like Electa Bangs, Joe Blow, or Manley Fish.  But I like Orlando Florida's name especially well.  One of the men who mows grass in the summer told me when his supervisor asked him how far he got in his mowing, he replied "as far as Orlando Florida."

 

Orlando Florida (block 101)

Up the road from the Florida family, and across from the Tallman plot is a large wooded area that have relatively few headstones.  This is the public grounds, also known as the Potter's Field area of Oak Hill, where those who cannot afford to purchase a cemetery plot are buried.  There are many indigent men and women, itinerant workers, and children buried here.  Sometimes the families added a headstone later, so some of the burials are marked, but most are not.

Public Grounds (Potter's Field, block 121, 122, 123)

The impressive red granite monument here marks the plot of the William Morrison Tallman family.  Today the Tallmans' homes are maintained and operated as public attractions by the Rock County Historical Society.  William Morrison Tallman's house is a lovely brick home where Abraham Lincoln really did spend a couple of nights when he was running for President.   The pretty white marble monument featuring a young woman pointing toward heaven next to the family monument is dedicated to Augusta Tallman Beach, who died as a young wife in Chicago.

Augusta Beach and the Tallman family (block 89)

Elias Childs was a stone cutter from New York, and while his headstone is plain, those of his wife and daughter are anything but plain.  Dia and Frances Childs' stone is a pair of short tree trunks on a low wall of rocks, each with a scroll, rope tied in a knot, and rose - in one in full bloom and one in bud. 

Dia Childs and daughter's rusticated headstone (block 86)

I do not know very much about Ephraim Spalding, other than he was the son of a veteran of the War of 1812, but I have always admired the sheaf of wheat that marks his resting place.  You probably remember the same symbol on the window in the chapel, representing a life come to fruition.

Ephraim Spalding - Sheaf of Wheat (block 75)

Notice the small marker dedicated to "Ira," with the symbol of the anchor.  This symbol might stand for the idea of hope, or safety, or even be a veiled reference to the holy cross.

Ira - Anchor (block 75)

 

If you look across the road you'll see a large monument dedicated to Janesville Freemasons  Many headstones at Oak Hill feature the compass and square, this monument features Masonic symbols on each of the four faces of the marker, including the cross and crown of the Knights Templar, which you will remember from the window in the chapel.

Masonic Monument - Knights Templar symbol of cross and crown (block 157)

Speaking of Masonic symbols, this headstone marking the final resting place of Charles A. Brown, features a broken column, a weeping virgin with a book, and a sprig of acacia, an urn, and Father Time holding a scythe.  All are symbols of mortality, but this particular image is related to Freemasonry.  Charles Brown was a dedicated Mason.

Charles Brown - Father Time and the Weeping Virgin (block 91)

It is unfortunate that Thomas Nichols' headstone has recently toppled.  I've always liked the image of the train car on his marker.  In life he was a conductor for the Chicago and Northwestern railroad.

Thomas Nichols - train car (block 91)

 George Bentley fought for the Union in the Civil War, and was killed in Perryville, Kentucky, in 1862.  His impressive stone includes a shield, sword, and his cap.

Capt. George Bentley - cap, shield and sword (block 91)

Heading back toward the chapel off to the left it is easy to miss the other large tree monument at Oak Hill, dedicated to the family of  Henry Culver.  Culver, originally from New York, made his fortune in manufacturing in New England, and later in life moved to Rock county to farm.  The monument features many unique touches including a cross, a book at the base of the tree with family names inscribed, and even a tiny mouse.

Henry Culver family tree monument (block 83)

This is the family plot for the James Crosby family.  Crosby was a wealthy man from New York who  came to Janesville in 1852 and became the general manager of the Harris Manufacturing Company, and later an was an officer of the Rock County National Bank.  He is buried here with his wife Andalusia, and daughters Alice and Jessie.  I like to think the pretty girl featured on their monument represents their daughter Alice, who died as a schoolgirl in New York of scarlet fever.   The figure points to heaven, and holds a scroll and an anchor, and there is also a dove similar to the one featured on the chapel window.

James Crosby and family - lady, dove, anchor (block 30)

 The tall gray granite obelisk ahead marks the burial spot of Judge Edward Whiton, a man important in Wisconsin history.  Originally from Massachusetts, he came to the Wisconsin Territory in 1836 and became a member of the Wisconsin Territory assembly the following year.  When Wisconsin became a state in 1848, Whiton was elected circuit judge, and joined four other circuit judges to form the first Wisconsin Supreme Court.  He was elected chief justice in 1853, and served with integrity and honesty.

Judge Edward Whiton and family (block 35)

You may remember the memorial window in the chapel dedicated to William Starr Judd.  The young boy was the son of Dr. William Judd, a well respected local doctor who came from a family of physicians.  The son died from diphtheria after accompanying his father to a patient's home during a local outbreak, and became infected himself. 

Dr. William Judd and family - memorial window in chapel (block 38)

Our last stop today is at the family plot of several family members of Carrie Jacobs Bond, widely considered the first great American woman composer, who penned The End of a Perfect Day, and I Love You Truly. Carrie is buried in California, but her second husband, Frank Lewis Bond, is buried here.  He married Carrie in 1888, and died only seven years later after suffering a fall.  Hannibal Jacobs and Mary Davis Jacobs Minor, Carrie's parents, are also buried here.

Dr. Frank Lewis Bond and family - husband of Carrie Jacobs Bond (block 39)

This concludes today's tour.  I hope you had a "perfect day" here at Oak Hill, and enjoyed getting a little overview of this lovely cemetery.  Thank you for coming, and please watch your step on the road as you return.