Indian Field Cemetery Revisited

(August 2010)

    Our summer student volunteer, 11 year old Brianna Groth, went on the Lexington Library fieldtrip to Indian Field Cemetery as a culmination to their summer reading program “Scare Up a Good Book.” 

Here is her description of their visit in July of 2010.

        In the beginning of June, after school ended for the summer, I joined the Lexington Library summer reading program.  They had a bunch of exciting activities planned, and I was especially looking forward to the trip to Indian Field Cemetery. I had been volunteering at The Fort all summer learning about doing research for folks who were trying to piece together missing facts about long ago relatives.  I had learned that this old cemetery was one of the original places of burial in the Lexington area. Legend tells that the local pioneers found an Indian body up in a tree and later buried the remains in Indian Field.  See the May 2005 article from The Fort webpage for the full story…. http://www.lexingtonillinoisfort.org/Articles/2005/May/HowIndianFieldCemeteryGotItsName.htm

        Our visit to the cemetery would be really special because over the years development and land changes have made access to the cemetery very restricted.  In order to get to it, special permission must be obtained from the land owners of the surrounding property, the Breese family.  For this cemetery walk Mrs. Sally Breese was going to give us a personal tour.  The plan was for the reading club members, some parents, and the librarians to meet Mrs. Breese at the library and she would lead us southeast of town on Pine Street, or locally known where it becomes a country road, as “Snake Road.”  I kept wondering if the “snake” referred to the curvy layout of the road or to what we might find in the old cemetery by the Mackinaw River!

        Finally when we arrived near the cemetery, there was a hay rack waiting for everyone to pile on it and ride through the field to the shady spot near the river, a place rarely visited by living humans anymore.  The cemetery is in a big patch of tall old trees and must be so shaded that the grass doesn’t grow very well, or the Breese’s had trimmed nicely before our visit.  Lucky for us there were no tall weeds for those feared “snakes” to hide in, but the “no see ums” must have been holding a family reunion.  All of us came home with millions of bug bites!

        Even if I didn’t already know that the cemetery had been started in the early 1800’s, we could tell it is very old because many of the stones were cracked, some were face down in the dirt, some had pieces missing, and many of the names and dates couldn’t be read because they were so worn.  As we walked around the old stones it was hard to imagine it having been nice and new nearly 200 years ago.  It was now much more a place to “scare up a good story!”   

Another early stone in good shape.		Visitors took notes and checked out the fancy old stones like this one.

    Sally Breese led us through the cemetery showing us stones from Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War soldiers and pointing out interesting stones, burial places, and telling of special people that she knew about.  Her grandson Garrett Conaty, who I knew from 4H club, even did a presentation where he pretended to be one of the old pioneers whose family members were buried in the cemetery.  It sort of took us back into the old times if you closed your eyes and used your imagination. 

Sally Breese shared her knowledge of the old cemetery.		Garrett made a great presentation!

       Too soon it was time to pile on the hay rack and ride back across the field away from the spooky old cemetery.  We thanked the Breese family for sharing their treasure with us. We now appreciate more why they try to preserve the site and keep it safe from vandalism.  Touring Indian Field was an enjoyable experience and I am glad I got to visit a place so special in the history of Lexington.   I would like to have a chance to go back out there again sometime.

Here are some more photos I took while I was at the cemetery.

Harness, Turnipseed, Brumhead--all familiar names!		One stone with fancy carving and still easy to read.

By Brianna Groth, July 2010

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