Lee County Pioneer Cemetery Association
War Veterans

2007
Civil War Vets buried in Pioneer Cemeteries
Civil War

2002 - 2006

Vets in Pioneer Cemeteries Should be Remembered Too
Letter to the Editor of the Keokuk Daily Gate City
November 16, 2002

As I sat on a bench next to my wife on this past cold Veterans Day, I could not help but think of that old soldier buried on a hilltop nearly five miles away.  As the final echoes of Marika Estrada’s  “Taps” faded over the  tombstones of heroes past, I felt a twinge of sadness in my heart for Andrew OILER and the many other veterans buried in our pioneer cemeteries. 

“Old Soldiers never die, they just fade away” said Douglas MacArthur to a joint session of Congress after his return home from duty in Korea in 1951.  The truth of this statement never hit home more than it did this past Monday in Keokuk’s National Cemetery, as many old soldiers and others paid tribute to those who have passed on.  I thought of those buried in forgotten graves who gave service to this country, some who gave all. 

I thought of Andrew OILER*, buried on a hilltop out on Valley Road since 1854, the fear he must have felt, when as a sixteen year old he became a POW of the British in the War of 1812.  Or of Archibald GOOLEY, who has a toppled monument in the Pitman Grounds Cemetery near West Point.  What were his last thoughts as he lay on the ground at Shiloh, his life’s blood slowly draining from his body as the sounds of battle raged around him.   

And what about Lewis PHIFE, buried in Tierney Cemetery near Wever, a Lee County Medal of Honor winner from the Indian Wars.  Why doesn’t he have his name inscribed in gold on a Medal of Honor tombstone to which he is entitled. 

I could mention others buried in Lee County cemeteries with names like Johnson, Pioneer, Dudley, Judy, etc.  These veterans, many who lie in cemeteries in deplorable condition, deserve to have their graves maintained, a Memorial Day Flag, maybe even someone trudging up a hill or down a ravine to play “Taps” while some of us aging veterans stand at attention saluting.

There is a lot of truth in the old saying that “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”  Next year ar Memorial and Veterans Day services, as we the living gather, as we should, in the meticulous manicured National Cemetery in Keokuk, maybe a few of us can go to that lonely hilltop on Valley Road and give a salute to an older soldier who almost “just faded away.

* Andrew Oiler was born in 1796 in Virginia.  A cousin to Abraham Lincoln, he was captured by the British during the War of 1812 When Gen. Hull's Army surrendered.  Oiler came to the Keokuk area in 1844 and died in 1854.  He is buried on a hilltop on Valley Road.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ 

Meal of Honor Tombstone Dedication for Lewis Phife
at Tierney Cemetery Wever, Iowa
April 19, 2003
by Terry Altheide

Name:  Phife, Lewis  (Louis Phife)
Rank & Organization:  Sergeant, Company B 8^th U.S. Calvary
Place & Date:  Arizona, August to October 1868
Entered Service at:  Marion, Mason County, Oregon
Birth:  October 31, 1846, Des Moines County, Iowa     
Date of Issue;  July 24, 1869
Citation:  Bravery in Scouts & Action against Indians

The Engagements included Walnut Grove, Arizona 13 August 1868 with Company L of the 8^th U.S. Calvary under the command of Lieutenant A.B. Wells.  Three Indians were killed.  There was also an engagement on 21 October 1868 between Forts Verde and Whipple, Arizona, with Company  of the 8^th U.S. Calvary and detachments of Company G of the 14^th U.S. Infantry, all acting as mail guard.  One enlisted man was wounded. 

Ceremony
Introduction:  Terry Altheide, President, Lee County Pioneer Cemetery Association
Invocation:  Rev. Dale Thomas, First Baptist Church Keokuk, Iowa
Military Service;  George Morgan
Folding of the Flag & Presentation of the Flag
Firing Party:  Sons of the American Legion, Post #41, Keokuk, Iowa
Taps:  Marika Estrada
Retiring of the Colors:
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Metal of Honor Tombstone Dedication for Lewis Phife
at Tierney Cemetery Wever, Iowa
April 19, 2003
by Terry Altheide

Name:  Phife, Lewis  (Louis Phife)
Rank & Organization:  Sergeant, Company B 8^th U.S. Calvary
Place & Date:  Arizona, August to October 1868
Entered Service at:  Marion, Mason County, Oregon
Birth:  October 31, 1846, Des Moines County, Iowa     
Date of Issue;  July 24, 1869
Citation:  Bravery in Scouts & Action against Indians

The Engagements included Walnut Grove, Arizona 13 August 1868 with Company L of the 8^th U.S. Calvary under the command of Lieutenant A.B. Wells.  Three Indians were killed.  There was also an engagement on 21 October 1868 between Forts Verde and Whipple, Arizona, with Company  of the 8^th U.S. Calvary and detachments of Company G of the 14^th U.S. Infantry, all acting as mail guard.  One enlisted man was wounded. 

Ceremony
Introduction:  Terry Altheide, President, Lee County Pioneer Cemetery Association
Invocation:  Rev. Dale Thomas, First Baptist Church Keokuk, Iowa
Military Service;  George Morgan
Folding of the Flag & Presentation of the Flag
Firing Party:  Sons of the American Legion, Post #41, Keokuk, Iowa
Taps:  Marika Estrada
Retiring of the Colors:
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pioneers Patriot Day
October 4, 2004
by Terry Altheide

For the second straight year, 19th century veterans buried in Lee County's pioneer cemeteries were honored Saturday during Pioneer Patriot's Day.  This year's observance conducted by the Lee County Pioneer Cemetery Association took place at Johnson Cemetery, which has lain unattended since shortly after the Depression until recently.

The association was aided by American Legion Post 41, which provided an honor guard, with Sons of the American Legion Squadron 41 and V.F.W. Post 3508 also helping.

"Today we honor five Civil War veterans lying here," said Terry Altheide, president of the Lee County Pioneer Cemetery Association. "Chancy Bloomfield, Christopher Johnson, Frank Jourdan, Orlo McPherson and James Roseberry have all rested here for more than 100 years and were laid to rest when this site was well maintained. For various reasons the graveyard fell into disrepair and the dignity that they earned the right to have was, year by year, slowly fading away.

"I believe it is up to us, the living, and especially living veterans, to help keep the memories of these pioneer veterans alive," Altheide added. "No veteran should lie in a weed-infested cemetery or beneath free roaming cattle.

"These valiant veterans saw first hand life's utmost ugliness, warfare. Surely, their memories need to be honored yearly and for all of us to take to heart what someone once said, 'A man is not dead until he is forgotten.'"

Marian Ealey represented American Legion Auxiliary Post 41 by placing a wreath upon the grave of Johnson. The wreath was provided by Sharon Little of Fort Madison, secretary for the cemetery association.

A flag was presented to Laverna Moore of Fort Madison by honor guard chaplain Basil Reed. Moore is a descendant of Johnson, who grew up in the vicinity of Belfast, a now vanished hamlet that used the cemetery to bury its dead.

The Rev. Dan Deatrick of the First Baptist Church of Wayland, Mo., gave the invocation.

Pat Hogan, commander of American Legion Post 41, gave some brief comments and then led the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Due to an injury in a football game Friday night, Scott Brown of West Point was not able to play Taps. The American Legion provided a recording instead.

In the past two years, Van Buren trustees, led by Bill Batten, have bought a new fence for the graveyard and have hired landowners Bill and Cindy White as cemetery caretakers. The site has been mowed four times this year. Robert Holtkamp cut down many trees two years ago and was instrumental in guiding the cemetery group's recent setting of 32 stones one Saturday morning.
______________________________________________________________________________________________

Pioneer Parent's Day
Hoffmeister Cemetery
May 15, Year Unknown

The Lee County Pioneer Association held its first "Pioneer Parent's Day" ceremony on May 15 at the Hoffmeister Cemetery in Fort Madison.  The third Saturday of May of each year has been set aside to remember the pioneering families of Lee County, who, through many hardships, built the county.  This year, the Augusta Hoffmeister family of Fort Madison was honored to represent the many families who carved out of the wilderness the civilization that Lee Countians enjoy today.

Those buried at Hoffmeister Cemetery can be found on the Abandoned Cemetery Pages.
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Pioneer Parents' Day ceremony draws crowd
May 31,2005
by Terry Altheide

The Lee County Pioneer Cemetery Association held its second annual Pioneer Parents' Day ceremony Saturday, May 21, at the Conlee Farm Cemetery in rural Montrose. Almost 70 people attended the service. 
The cemetery is on State Highway 218 one half mile from the junction of State Highway 61 and is the site of four known burials. The earliest dates back to 1846 and the remains of several others are believed to be at the site.

After a welcome by association president Terry Altheide, Roger Payne of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Keokuk Branch, offered the invocation.

Mike Foley, director of the Mormon Trail Visitor's Center in Montrose, spoke about the Mormon settlement of Zarahemla that once existed near the Conlee Cemetery. Foley demonstrated dousing, also known as "witching," a method used to locate graves.

A wreath was placed near the grave of Margaret French by Courtney and Allyson Laue, representing the firm of Leyda, Burrus & Metz Monument Company of Burlington. The company refurbished the cemetery's four existing stones in 2002. Sharon Little, a member of the association, made the wreath.

New this year was the landowner's presentation, which was given to Ruth Conlee in appreciation for her permission to restore the cemetery. A bouquet of flowers donated by Flowers by Daryl of Keokuk was presented to Conlee by Megan Irvin, association member.

People known to be buried at Conlee Cemetery are William Clark, 1804-1846; Margaret French, 1821-1849; Joshua Smith, died in 1856; and Nancy Jane Sturdivant, died 1851.

The ceremony bulletin said, "According to an article in the Nov. 10, 1936 "Keokuk Citizen," there was at one time many other burials at this site. The remains of many were removed to Utah at various times."

It is believed that as many as 25 people are still buried at the Conlee Cemetery.

Pioneer Parents' Day is a day set aside by the association each year on the third Saturday of May to honor pioneer families of Lee County, many of whom are buried in abandoned and forgotten cemeteries.

Association members believe in restoration of the historic sites and learning as much as possible about the people who are buried there
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Revolutionary War veterans buried in
Friday, February 24, 2006
By: Terry Altheide

Lee County can boast of having Revolutionary War veterans buried in it’s boundaries.  They include: 

1. Timothy Brees who served in the New Jersey Light Infantry.  He died in 1847 at the age of 90 and is buried in Lost Creek Cemetery five miles north of Ft Madison.
2. Abram Clark who served with North Carolina’s 10^th Regiment.  He died at age 84 in 1850 and is buried in the Woolen’s Corner Cemetery a few miles north of West Point.
3. Amos Glover who was a member of the 2^nd Delaware Regiment and served as a drummer and a fifer.  He died in 1843 at the age of 81 and is buried in the Croton Cemetery.
4. Cato Mead who served as a private with the 5^th Connecticu and die in Montrose in 1846 at the age of 84.  The exact location of his grave is unknown but a marker was set for him in Soldier’s Circle in Montrose Cemetery in 1969.
5. Joseph Patterson who served in both the 7^th and 8^th Virginia Regiments and is buried in Keokuk’s Oakland Cemetery.  Patterson who died in 1850 at the age of 84, was known in the early days of Keokuk as the man who voted “for the father of his country, George Washington”
6. George Perkins who served with the legidary Swamp Fox, Francis Marion, in South Carolina.  Perkins, who died at age 88 in 1840, is buried in Sharon Cemetery near Primrose.

This list was sent to Terry by Miles Brewer and was taken from the DAR book, “Revolutionary War Soldiers and Patriots Buried in Iowa”.  Much credit should also be given to the late Thelma Shepard, a former Ft Madison resident who spent more the 10 years painstakingly researching old census records and newspaper files compiling the list of all Revolutionary War soldiers buried in Iowa.

 Though Lee County itself was non-existent during the war of the War of the Rebellion, it nonetheless can boast that at least six of it’s citizens rubbed shoulders, if ever so slightly, with some of the Founding Fathers of this country and served with honor with some of it’s greatest heroes.

June 2006
Other Veterans of 1812 by Terry Altheide

Isaac Beeler
Born in 1783 in Tennessee.  He fought three different times in the war under three different commanders.  He came to Lee County in 1836 and died in 1872.  He is buried in the Beeler Family cemetery on property he once owned.

John Malcom
Born in 1795 in Virginia.  He entered the army in September 1814 in Charleston, Va., and was a private in the Fourth militia.  He died in 1864 and is buried in the Locust Grove Cemetery north of Ft Madison.

Frank Ballinger
Born in 1805 and was a drummer boy during the war.  He was a circuit judge for eight years in Kentucky before coming to Iowa and buying land near Sandusky in 1855. He is buried on the land he once owned, it's listed as a lost cemetery.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________