| Edward Cemetery, Hampton Twp, Rock Island Co, ILL. |
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| County Discovers It Has Owned 'LOST' Cemetery for 118 Years |
| Surrounded by the clank and roar of heavy road building equipment in the upper end of county is a brush-covered little cemetery. This "lost" cemetery, Rock Island County supervisors were told Monday, is theirs. And now that they have found out they are the owners of the one-acre cemetery, supervisors don't know what they are going to do with it. The county's ownership of the plot of ground. situated about a mile south of Illinois 2 and 92 near the intersection of interstate 80, came to light when the Iowa-Illinois Gas & Electric Co. wanted an easement fot the construction line from Barstow to the Nitrin plant near Cordova. Officials for the firm reseached records at the courthouse and discovered that on July 17, 1847, Luther Edwards had deeded the property to the county board of supervisors. The firm then sought an easement from the county. The county's property committee will look at the cemetery brfore granting the easement. Asked whether the county will put the cemetery back in shape again, Richard Wendt, chairman of the property committee, said, "That we don't know." The plot of ground, known as Edwards Cemetery, is located near the construction site for interstate 80. The plot, surrounded by a hogwire fence with old iron gates ajar at the entrance, measure 165 by 265 feet. Overgrown By Brush Brush and undergrowth are hip-high through most of the cemetery and shoulder-high in parts. The only trees in the cemetery are small clump of everygreens near the front. A dead elm pokes its rotten branches through the boughs of the evergreens. Old mason jars lie askew on the ground among headstones. 20 Headstones About 20 headstones, some of them tipped over, are in the cemetery. The writing on many of the stones is illegible because of exposure to weather. Luther Edwards was one of the early settlers in the county, coming here from Vermont in 1839, 12 years after the first land claim was made in Hampton Township. In 1840 he moved to Section 24, the section in which the cemetery is located. Seven years later he deeded the burial plot to the county commissioners. As recorded at the courthouse, the deed reads: Luther Edwards doth give, grant and convey unto the said (Rock Island) County commissionners and their successors in office in trust for the use of the inhabitence (sic) of said county one acre of land to be used as a place of interment of the dead ... and for no other use whatever." Luther Edwards died in 1850, apparently leaving his property to his son, Luther D.Edwards. Whether the older Edwards is buried in the family plot was not known. Edwards Markers There are three markers, however, for the Luther D. Edwards family. According to headstones, Luther D. Edwards died in 1906 and his wife died in 1900. A third marker is for the "only child," Luther D., who died in 1866 at the age of 3. The Edwards' later adopted a child, however - Adolph Schaublin Edwards. Other early pioneers of Hampton Township also are buried in the plot. One of the earliest burials apparently is that of Nelson D. Cook, who died in 1851. Cook, according to an early biography, came from Connecticut to Illinois County in 1834 when he resided "on the prairie south of Hampton. One of the later burials was that of William W. Gerhardt, who died in 1914 at the age of 5. Other early burials include John T. Crouch, 1897; Polly P. Moore, 1869; Mathilda J. Warren, 1882; Mrs. Thirza A. Walker, 1872, and Thomas Neels, 1877. Relatives of those buried in the cemetery apparently kept up the grounds for a number of years. A nearby resident, Miss May Crouch, whose relatives are buried there, said no one has kept up the cemetery for the last three years. |
| Story was in the, Rock Island Argus, Wednesday, June 16, 1965 |
| By Robert H. Teuscher, Augus Staff Writer |
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| A list of burials in the cemetery on the next page |