Untitled Document

ARTZ CEMETERY

ARTZ CEMETERY FACELIFT CELEBRATED MEMORIAL DAY

Cathy Decker

Staff Reporte

Larry Eckhardt of Little York got involved in a project when he was 16 years old that 32 years later, still interests him.

Every Memorial Day he makes his way out to Artz Cemetery, north of Aledo out in the Sugar Grove area, to make sure there are flowers on the veterans graves there and an American flag is flying. The Veteran he honors is William Ashbaugh who died July 21, 1868. He was a veteran of the Civil War, serving as a private in Company A of the 30 th Illinois Infantry.

“I maintained it fully until 1986.” said Eckhardt. Back when he was a teenager there were others he remembered who helped bring the neglected cemetery out of ruins including Izaak “Ike” Long, Robin Whitehall and Tina Brockett. Eckhardt is just as enthusiastic to day as he was back then. “It was great. We didn’t know anybody there.” He added. “We were the ones that got it started.”

The project back then received so much notice that the Mercer County Historical Society, 16 months later, designated the location a historical point of interest and mounted a sign there indicating it as a Mercer County Landmark.

To this day, Eckhardt still doesn’t know any of the people buried in that cemetery, although he did once add a grave stone to the cemetery that he came upon when he was working on a project to gather some Mercer County historical information for a book he was researching-The Historical Atlas of Mercer County. This book was published by the Title Atlas Company in 1983.

He said he first came upon Artz cemetery with his father, Lee Eckhardt, who actually made the flagpole that is in the cemetery.

Others who have been involved over the years restoring the Artz cemetery included Jim Hemphill, who took photographs of the cemetery and was the Aledo City Clerk at the time, Joe Lemmon, who installed a roadside tube at the entrance to the cemetery for visitors to walk to it. Then there was Kenny Weeks. “Kenny Weks moved the roadside banks.” He recalled.

Some of these people are gone now.” He added. “There was also a gentleman down the road who loaned us a weed-eater.

Getting back to the project that was started 32 years ago Echhardt added “to us it was an important project .”

He said the group of young people took about a week out of their young lives to bring the cemetery back to life. “We found some William Ashbaugh stones that had been buried.” He said the project was nothing more than something fun to do for the teen agers. “I’d always liked history.” He added.

Since that time, Eckhardt has delved into some of the history surrounding that peticular cemetery. “It redone before back in 1934,” he said “Nobody is left in the Mercer County area in the family.”

“The Ashbaugh family was very prominent out there.” He said. He tells one story of the family that used to live in the area. “Under the backside of that house(which used to be the Ashbaugh homestead), is a cistern with semi precious stones in it.” Said Eckhardt. He said “One of the sisters got mad at her brother and threw some semiprecious stones in it.”

A William Ashbaugh saber, as well as another weapon are on exhibit at the Rock Island Arsenal Museum. “The wall around that cemetery is lined with stones from the first Grist Mill built on the east side of the Mississippi,”said Eckhardt. The Grist Mill was owned by the Artz family.

Another Veterans stone that made its way to Artz Cemetery came from Rivens Cemetery, west of Hamlet. There is a second stone on display at the cemetery that Earhardt came upon in 1983. It came from a lady who was originally buried in Premtion Township. “It was being used as a doorstop,” he said. He came upon the stone when he was talking to Mercer county residents for the book he was researching.

“There’s always been a report of another veteran buried out there, but we’ve never found it.” He said neighbors in the area have become involved lately involved with the cemetery. “It’s been like a magnet, we’ve just been able to draw so many.”

There’s a list of about 15 people who have been involved. Jackie Bertleson took some pictures, Pauline Robinson has planted flowers out there. ‘She has put a flag out there from her husband Harold Robinson.

“Bill Lindquist has been a real magnet out there. He’s been working on the wall with his neighbor Richard Feik. His son Garrett Feik has been cutting grass.”

Used with permission

Times Record

June 1, 2005

Submitted by Lois Retherford

Illinois Ancestors