Green Cemetery - Willard, Shawnee County, Kansas

These blogs are wonderful!!   They allow cousins and friends to share information that would not otherwise be possible.    After I wrote the blog about Francis M. and Roxanna Eaton Jones, Craig Gunther, who lives in Topeka, Kansas, made a trip to visit the Green Cemetery and take photographs.   Craig is the son of Bruce Gunther, the grandson of Clair and Marie Hedges Gunther, the great grandson of John and Thelma Clark Hedges, the great great grandson of Jim Pete and Mabel Jones Clark, the 3rd great grandson of Leander and Vergia Miller Jones, and the 4th great grandson of Francis M. and Roxanna Eaton Jones.  Thank you very much Craig.   I know family members will appreciate the photos.


Craig shared this photo: L-R are Craig Gunther (born in 1978) Mabel R. (Jones) Clark holding Craig's brother Ryan (born in 1983).  Mable, the boy's great great grandmother, was 90 when the picture was taken.   She loved all of her family.   Unfortunately, Ryan was killed in a tragic accident in 2008.   They are the sons of Bruce Gunther and Tamah Linn Boyce Gunther.

 This photo is of Craig Gunther, looking at the tombstone of his 4th Great Grandfather, Francis M. Jones in the Green Cemetery.   This tombstone is a typical government stone.

 This photograph shows the tombstone of Francis M. Jones.  Of interest in the foreground is the lime green ball.   This is what we used to call an "osage orange" and is the fruit from a hedge or bodark tree.    Grandma Mabel Clark and my mother used to pick these fruits up in the fall and put them in the far corners of their closets and under their beds and dressers.  Grandma Mabel Clark said that her Potawatomi Indian friends told her that if you put hedge balls in dark places, spiders and other bugs would never come near.  My mom and grandmother certainly took their advice.

Hedge trees were used as "cheap fences" by pioneers.   They were planted along property lines, grew quickly, were covered with thorns and would keep cattle inside their bounds.  Today they have mostly been removed and/or cut for firewood.   Hedge burns incredibly hot, so hot it has to be mixed with other woods.

 This is a photograph of the stone home built by the Green Family.   A portion of the cemetery existed long before the Green's came from Vermont or even before the town of Willard was established.  Previously, there was a settlement called Uniontown, and important Potawatomi and Oregon Trail trading community.   The north half of the cemetery contains the graves of many Potawatomi Indian people who died during a cholera and small pox epidemic.   Here's what Topeka Capitol Journal columnist wrote about it:

 Uniontown once Indian trade post

Posted by
Dick King

Dick King

Question: I have heard of a ghost town, Union Town, in western Shawnee County. Can you give me some history about it? — L.A., Topeka

Answer: Uniontown, official spelling, has the distinction of once being the largest city in Kansas, back when it was not even a territory.      The history was found by Jeff Imparato, research librarian at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, in "Ghost Towns of Kansas, Volume 2," by Daniel Fitzgerald, Topeka historian and author, which was published in 1979.

Uniontown traces its history to March1848 when it became a Potawatomi Indian trading post about a half-mile south of the present-day Rossville.  Uniontown was the official trading post from then until about 1853, and it reached a population of about 300 people and 60 buildings.

Practically all of the Western Trails in Kansas led to this point, and a ferry was built after a contract was signed on July 10, 1850.  "Union town not only became an important trading post," wrote Fitzgerald, "but also was the site of the Potawatomi annuity payment building, which operated until 1859."

The gatherings usually lasted 10 to 15 days, during which Indians enjoyed gambling and horse racing, along with tribal dancing.  By 1849, the town was booming wildly.  The St. Louis Republican wrote with advice for emigrants:
"Emigrants for California or Oregon, by the way of Independence, Kansas Landing or Westport, will find an excellent ford across the Kansas River at Uniontown, in the event of high water, and at Uniontown the traders have a good supply of all articles of provisions at reasonable rates."

Cholera hit the area hard in 1849 and 1850 and Indians died by the hundreds, according to Fitzgerald. Before the surviving whites left Uniontown, they buried many Indians in a common grave and burned the entire town.  Uniontown recovered and in 1850, it again was established as a trading post with a physician, two blacksmiths, a wagon-maker, two gunsmiths and a saw mill.  A branch of the Oregon Trail passed through town and soon there were 60 buildings, 14 of them stores, with the largest settlement in the state.  In 1859, the remains of the town were burned and the largest city in Kansas was reduced to ashes."

 This is the tombstone of Virginia "Vergie" Hannah Miller Jones in Green Cemetery.   There are varying spellings of her nickname.   My Grandmother always used "Vergie" but this tombstone was placed 50 years after her death by her brother, Richard Miller, who lived in Everett, Washington.   Uncle Dick as we called him, used to come back nearly every year and spend several months with my his niece, Mabel Clark and other relatives.  He also attended the Masonic Lodge at Delia, Kansas where he had grown up.   Uncle Dick and his children owned a cedar shingle mill in Startup, Washington.  I remember he always drove a new Ford Thunderbird.  Vergie was the wife of Leander E. Jones and died during childbirth in 1901.   Her baby son, Louis Jones, is buried beside her.




This is Craig Gunther's photo of the tombstone some of the Green Family.    The last Green descendants were childless and left all of their farm surrounding the cemetery to the State of Kansas as a nature preserve.   The farm is full of wild turkeys, deer and other game now.










This is another of the Potawatomi graves that are located on the north end of the property.   I always thought this portion of the cemetery was legally part of the Green Cemetery but there is now a sign there that indicates it is owned of the Potawatomi Indian Nation.   That's the way it should be. 

This is another photograph of the south end of the Green Cemetery.  You can see the hedge trees forming the south boundary of the graveyard.
During the years I lived in Kansas (1944-1978) the Saturday before Memorial Day was always a long day of traveling from cemetery to cemetery and putting quart jars of flowers on graves.   Memorial Day was first observed in 1868 but was at first called Decoration Day.   As a child, my relatives all still called the observance Decoration Day.   It was a time when you took flowers to decorate the graves of soldiers and relatives and honor them.   We would load the trunk of our car with big buckets filled with iris, peonies, spirea, and other flowers.   There would also be a box of fruit jars under our feet in the back seat.   We'd take a spade or shovel with us as well.  We'd visit the Green Cemetery, the Bethlehem Cemetery in Snokomo, and the Old Stone Church Cemetery at Maple Hill.   We'd dig little holes, bury the jars halfway, pour in water and arrange the flowers.   My Grandmothers Mabel Clark and Mildred Corbin, my mother Lucille Clark and my cousin Bonnie Mitchell and my brother Gary Clark and I would usually provide the contingent.   Usually the next weekend, we'd make a trip to pick up all the jars because they would be needed for canning vegetables over the summer.

Thanks again Bruce and Happy Trails to you all!