His family is a former owner of the land. William Richmond, who died at the Red Cross Hospital in Kankakee during the pandemic in 1916, is buried on the site. George has yet to be found among area burial grounds, however, his son is listed in Mount Grove Cemetery. Records suggest George Legg, a former owner of the farm and a veteran of the War of 1812, could be interned there as well. The death was only part of the news his widow Nancy received that day, as their son William was killed in a Confederate Guerrilla attack just one month prior. He was the oldest member of his unit at 45 years old. John Gordon was killed after a fellow soldier’s gun was accidentally discharged, killing him. Up to five Veterans call the Cemetery home, including Civil War Veterans Corporal John Gordon, William Gordon, Simon Downey, and John Divilbliss. A tombstone at the Smith Cemetery inside the Kankakee River State Park dates back to the era of the Van Meter Cemetery featuring similar style headstones used in the era. Kankakee County’s first Justice of the Peace, Joseph Van Meter, calls the grounds home, along with a former daughter of the Mayor of Kankakee, Mary H. The rats fell into his drinking well and ended up killing ten people, including four members of the Davis clan buried in Van Meter.Įmma Van Meter, who was just nine days old, resides here along with several other children. Davis found himself and his family poisoned after dealing with a rat problem around his house. While the Davis story is a treasure to itself, his death was not. Some laid to rest at least 15 years before the County came to be.Īmong them include Samuel Davis, one of the key players in the founding of Kankakee County and one of the first settlers of Bourbonnais, a town of now over 40,000 residents. Kankakee County’s earliest residents call the Cemetery home. However, to date, nearly all of the tombstones at Van Meter Cemetery are missing.ĭocumentation shows the former Cemetery location inside the Blatt Park. In all, Van Meter was a prime space dedicated to resting residents from 1838 up until 1919. In a quiet graveyard that once cost a dollar to dig a grave for a loved one, the dead would find them bludgeoned by tennis balls of equivalent value for over half a century. All the while, bodies lie in peace while a tennis court was slowly raised above bodies below.īy 1958, Van Meter Cemetery was visually, no more. Gates housing the hallowed grounds were removed, trees torn up, tombstones broken, scattered to the wind. The renovations saw the once quiet wooded landscape defaced by workers. Many of them later became interned here themselves.Īfter going unkempt for years following the last burial in 1919, the site became marked for a civil improvement project around 1953. Families named Goodwin, Lancaster, Richmond have all once owned the land, while United Brethren and Freemasons have had ties to burials conducted there.ĭuring its peak in 1896, members of United Brethren Church noticed it was in need of repair and organized to maintain it. Since the 1800s, multiple names coinciding with the people owning or organizations associated with it have held the namesake of the location. Unfortunately, official records have been lost to the winds of time, in part due to poor record-keeping by the many farmers that previously owned the land.Įveryone calls it something different over the years, but the word “Cemetery” easily keeps the story alive. Today we have documents showing at least 65 souls are buried there, with potentially up to over 100 calling the Park home. The entombment ground is home to residents influential to the formation of the County, their families, children, some as young as nine days old, and American Veterans. An old farm cemetery dedicated to some of the area’s earliest pioneer settlers in Kankakee County that now resides inside Blatt Park. Van Meter Cemetery was Kankakee County’s first organized burial ground. In part, the Cemetery was defaced in the 1950s, bodies left in the ground, while a tennis court was erected above them.Ī story that over time has run the stages of grief by countless people, but began as a story of arrogance, disgrace, and complete disrespect by some area locals. So many eulogies end with the phrase “Rest well on your journey,” but for the residents of Van Meter Cemetery in Bradley, Illinois, that rest has been in vain for half a century.
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