Date: 20/29/00
Update: August 2, 2001
Cemetery:
Root Cemetery
Other Names: Root Cemetery Nature Preserve
Street: North Hampton
City: Northampton
County: Peoria
State: Illinois
Nation: U.S.A.
Zip: 61523
Nearby: North Hampton Road
Land Type: Public
Status: Abandoned
Accessible: Yes
Unmarked graves: Yes
Graves within: 100
Oldest grave: cant tell
Newest grave: cant tell
Records: Unsure
Inventory: Yes
Records location: It's name is Root
Cemetery and Nature preserve. The state has
made it a "nature preserve", other wise it is
5foot weeds, knocked down stones, missing stone
. It is all about 1800 to 1900 stones,
Owner: State of Illinois
Condition: Cemetery destroyed
Vandalism
Overgrown-trees
Overgrown-ground cover
Overgrown-vines
Broken Headstones
Buried Headstones
Disintegrating Headstones
Fallen Headstones
Previous contacts: No one so far. Really
would appreciate help. My daughter is 12 years
old and is ready to take the State on. She is
very, very upset when she saw that our history
to pioneer days has been trashed, there are a
lot of babies and children buried there.
Work Status: No work started as of yet
Update -2
Date: August 2, 2001
This posting contains many errors, from
the name of the site and ownership to the dates of the graves. The site
has been regularly managed for the past dozen years, first by the
Illinois Native Plant Society and then by the Volunteer Stewardship
Network. It is owned by Hallock Township and a dedicated Nature Preserve.
The only person in the area who has relatives buried there is one of our
volunteers. There are no graves there from the 1700s; the first settlers
in this part of Illinois arrived around 1820. The first persons buried
there were Jerial Root's wife and daughter, and he later set aside the
2.5 acre plot for a public burying ground. The missing stones were
apparently sold by some enterprising local person to a Peoria building
contractor. The stones that are stacked were place so by a group who
wanted to "clean up" the cemetery -- and then forgot where they had found
them. I have left them in that manner; since most of them belong to
children from the same family, this does not seem inappropriate.
Vandalism occurs, although it is less since we (following our management
plan) have allowed more overgrowth. Most occurs following an
environmental burn, when the graves are easily accessible. Signs have
been posted on the site explaining its status; a Natural Area sign was
first posted about 10 years ago. This is not an abandoned cemetery in any
manner. The last burial there was in the 1950s. The native plants that
abound in the cemetery are those that the persons interred there knew.
Nor have we removed any of the alien plants added by survivors: iris,
graveyard spurge, sedum, peonies, and day lilies. We respect the persons
interred in the cemetery, and feel that putting little paths to their
stones so that the curious can tromp on their graves is disrespectful.
Those who wish to volunteer time at the cemetery may contact me. We will
have several workdays this fall. Ann Frye VSN Steward, Root Cemetery
Nature Preserve
Update Submitted by / Contact for
additional Information:
name: Ann Frye
Email: annfrye@mtco.com
Update
I am updating the section regarding the
6 foot weeds. Between last week and today, they have had a controlled
burn. They left a walking path, but the cemetery looks even worse than
last week. There are so many broken stones, and sunken graves. The dates
are in the 1800s, but I did find one that the date of death was 1824 and
he was 74 when he died. My daughter who is 12 years old, has really taken
this as a cause for her. We took many pictures today. Could you please
tell us how and what to do next?
We have now found one civil war stone.
We have also been informed by local "historians"
that there are Indians also buried there. We have found one stone as the
date of death as
1754!!
Original Report and Update Submitted
by / Contact for additional Information:
name: Laurie Heneger
Email: heneger@mtco.com
