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CEMETERY MYSTERY: SOLVED
Landowner pinpoints historic gravesite
By Anelia K. Dimitrova
7/24/2010 12:00:00 AM
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Mike Magee, Ray Fredrick and Matt Fox of Waverly discuss the fragment of tombstone which marks the Spencer-Martin Cemetery on Fox's abstract.
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S… P… E… N…
These barely legible letters carved on a moss-covered piece of limestone on a bluff overlooking the Cedar River may hold the key to the mystery of the disappearance of the Spencer-Martin cemetery, a pioneer burial site southeast of Waverly.
For at least several decades, the existence of the sacred ground has sparked an occasional conversation among neighbors in the secluded neighborhood, but other then whispered recollections, little was known about the exact location of the cemetery.
A story reporting on the first settlers who were laid to rest in the cemetery stoked reader interest and prompted the land’s owner, Matt Fox, to take another look at his abstract.
On Wednesday, he volunteered to take the newspaper editor, an intern, a neighbor and a member of the State Association for the Preservation of Iowa Cemeteries, to the edge of his property where the stone lies.
Moving aside blades of grass, the 27-year-old revealed publicly and for the first time the piece of stone with the four faded letters.
He said he was shocked to learn of the grave site when he bought the property in 2007.
“As soon as we found out, we went to investigate,” he said, adding that he had heard from his father that the land was once an Indian burial site.
As Fox thumbed through his abstract, neighbor Ray Fredrick nodded in amazement.
“To tell you the truth, until today I didn't know it was a whole cemetery,” Fox said. “I just thought it was one grave. We just kind of wondered who it was – we just could read the first few letters and we didn’t know if it was a first name or a last name. Just kind of makes you think about life and wonder… I wonder what it was like when they dug the foundation (of the house) if they found anything, but that was years and years ago.”
The discovery is a major step forward in the efforts of Rick Sturdevant, a Waverly native, now an Air Force historian in Colorado Springs, Colo., who was the main catalyst for Tuesday’s story.
He holds fond memories of picking berries near the cemetery as a boy and reading college books under the thick shade of the oak trees as a student in the 1970s.
Wrapping up a visit to Waverly to work on the restoration of his historic ancestral home, now known as the Sturdevant House, the historian tried, unsuccessfully, to look for evidence of the cemetery remains on Monday.
With permission from intrigued neighbors, he and his wife, Kathy, walked along the edge of several properties in hopes that he would be able to reconcile his youthful memories with the layout of the plots and the houses that have cropped up since.
Frustratingly, the landscape did not match his mental image, but Sturdevant kept walking back and forth, gauging the lay of the land, staring at the grass as if hoping he might bump into a piece of the tombstone he remembered.
Fredrick took him to the corner of his property, and pointed out where he believed the remnants of the cemetery were.
Sturdevant shook his head in disbelief, maintaining, politely, that the real location was closer to the houses than anyone might think.
A Google map mislocates the sacred ground by about two miles, he kept saying, adding that at one time, he saw remains of the tombstone scattered down the bluff, suggesting that it had been tossed into the river.
His only hope was that a story might stir public consciousness and eventually a historical marker could be placed at the site with the names of the people who were buried there.
Had he stayed in town for another day, Rick Sturdevant would have been an integral part of the sleuth party on Wednesday and read for himself the abstract he so wanted to lay his hands on.
In this document, a map drawn in 1964 and certified by then registered engineer and surveyor, L.W. Kehe, shows the “approximate location of old grave site,” but offers no further insight into the nature of it.
A William Smith bought the property from the government on July 29, 1853, and upon his death in 1890, his son, W. Ward Smith, who was 53 at the time of his father’s death, inherited it.
On March 20, 1894, W. Ward Smith and his wife, Clarissa, sold the parcel to H.J. Houghton and A. Babcock and in 1912, it changed hands again, this time from A. Babcock and his wife, Dora, to H. J. Houghton, who acquired it on Feb. 13, 1912.
Two years later, Herman S. Bunth, a widower, bought the property for $4,900 on Feb. 9, 1914, and sold it for $1 to his son, Earl, on Nov. 20, 1925.
A mention of the grave site appears in the 1939 survey of the Works Progress Administration records published in the Bremer County Iowa Cemetery Records Book.
It reads:
“This is an abandoned cemetery, this is now the Earl Bunth farm; on a hill above the river S.E. of Waverly in the woods. Hess, Jacob and his wife, Elizabeth are also buried there.”
Sturdevant, whose grandfather Frank oversaw grave registrations during the Great Depression, says that Jacob Hess and his wife came to Waverly from Illinois along with Rev. Charles N. Martin, Elizabeth (Betsy) and William M. Spencer.
A gifted healer, Betsy Martin used her skill to help many a pioneer family, but when her skills failed, burials took place not far from the homestead.
In addition to William Spencer, old timers told Frank Sturdevant, that a man named Findley and a boy whose last name was Glascock, were buried there and possibly several others.
Hearing of Wednesday’s discovery, Sturdevant was grateful Fox had allowed the newspaper access to the site, and added that most likely the piece of stone was a fragment of the tombstone that once stood there.
“It’s absolutely fascinating evidence,” he said in a phone interview.
“I am extremely gratified that others have taken an interest in this and it’s important to preserve and somehow memorialize these hallowed grounds.”
In another twist, he said that the letters SPEN do not necessarily spell out an end to the mystery because the slab with the name, which now lies in the ground, was atop the tombstone when he last saw it before the development of the land.
"It's not the end because I want to find more segments of the tombstone and have it restored and have a memorial plaque placed with the names of the people who were buried there."
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Posted by:
Date:
7/28/2010 4:18:16 PM
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Go for it ! Very important to identify these forgotten grave sites.
M.Foster
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The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the Cedar Falls Times
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