The Salem Walker Cemetery is a historic cemetery west of Northville. The first burial in the Salem Walker Cemetery took place in 1834 after the land was donated by Ira Ham and early settler. I don’t have any spooky stories to tell about it, I just thought it looked beautiful blanketed in the freshly fallen autumn leaves.
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I visited the Pere Cheney cemetery several years ago when I started Lost In Michigan. I happened to be in the area so I figured I should stop by and see how it looks since I visited last. I was happy to see a stone monument near the entrance with a little bit of history of the town that is now gone. I also saw a lot of coins and trinkets left by visitors so the old remote and secluded graveyard must receive a lot of visitors.
The town of Pere Cheney was started in 1873 by George Chaney about 15 miles southeast of Grayling. The town’s population grew to about 1500 people but two epidemics of Diptheria in 1893 and 1897 killed most of its citizens.
Most of the headstones in the cemetery are gone and of the few remaining some have toppled over or been vandalized. The tallest monument in the old graveyard is for Frank and Frances Barber’s children.
Hattie, Ray, and Roy all died in December of 1893. That must have been a terrible Christmas for Frank and Frances and the entire town of Pere Chaney as death swept through the northern Michigan town.
If you want to know more about Pere Chaney you can see my post about the infamous town HERE or in Volume 1 of my Lost In Michigan book series where I give detailed information on how to find the Cemetery. You can order them from Amazon HERE
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I have visited a lot of cemeteries in Michigan doing research and the Holy Angels Cemetery on Sugar Island has to be one of the most secluded cemeteries in Michigan. The cemetery is also known as Payment Cemetery because many of the people buried in the old graveyard were from the nearby town of Payment. Michael G. Payment started a settlement on the shores of Sugar Island in 1845 and traded with the local Indians. In 1853 Bishop Baraga started a church that still stands today. You can see my post about it HERE
Behind the church, about 200 yards uphill, is the old cemetery. It was a somewhat difficult hike up a rocky path and I imagine it would be challenging to get landscaping equipment back there. The cemetery has a lot of tall grass and ferns growing among the tombstones and wooden crosses marking the graves of people laid to rest decades ago.
If you want to visit this burial ground you have to take a ferry to the island then head over to the church then hike up the hill to reach it, so yeah, I think it is one of the most remote cemeteries in Michigan.
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In a quiet rural cemetery southeast of Fife Lake in Springfield Township’s Clark Cemetery are tombstones for Gertrude and John Murphy. What is not carved into Gertrude’s marker is the name and death of her three month old baby that she is holding in her arms when she was buried. Ruth Murphy was being watched by her aunt Mary McKnight when she suddenly died in the summer of 1903. Shortly after returning home, Gertrude died. Mary McKnight was John Murphy’s Sister who came to live with the Murphy’s on their farm after her two husbands and three children died.
About a week after the funeral for Ruth and Gertrude, John died after suffering from seizures and strand contractions of his muscles. It was a local doctor that thought the description of John’s death seemed peculiar and reminded him of what he learned about strychnine poisoning while in medical school. John and Gertrude’s bodies were exhumed and their stomachs sent to the lab at the University of Michigan where traces of strychnine was discovered.
Mary was tried and convicted for the death of her brother and sister-in-law. The early 1900s trial was a media sensation with newspapers reporting on it nationwide. It is believed Mary was responsible for about a dozen deaths making her one of the first female serial killers in the nation. Her motives for the killings are still being debated. Author Tobin T. Buhk has written a book about the infamous murders titled Michigan’s Strychnine Saint: The Curious Case of Mrs. Mary McKnight. It is a fascinated true crime book detailing the story of her crime and life in Northern Michigan at the turn of the century. If you like true crime books I highly recommend reading it. You can read a preview of it on Amazon HERE
P.S. Her family believed she murdered her victims because she enjoyed attending the elaborate funerals of the period.
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This beautiful little stone chapel stands among the headstones in Riverside Cemetery in the southern Michigan town of Clinton. The historical marker next to the chapel tells a little bit of its history and reads:
This chapel, completed in 1913, embodies the dream of Cemetery Superintendent George Kies, the design of Clinton-born architect Wirt Rowland and the artistry of the mason, a “Mr. Uhr” of Manchester. It also reflects livestock dealer Solomon Tate’s sense of color and design. Tate chose the stones, donated by local farmers. The Clinton Culture Club, later the Federated Women’s Club, led the chapel building effort.
Early in his long career in Detroit, Clinton native Wirt C. Rowland designed this chapel, which reflects medieval inspiration. Wirt Rowland (1878 – 1946) worked for George D. Mason, Albert Kahn, and other leading Detroit architects. He is best known for designing three Detroit skyscrapers, the Buhl Building, the Penobscot Building, and the Guardian Building during the 1920s, while employed by Smith Hinchman & Grylls. These buildings defined the Detroit skyline for almost fifty years
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This old forgotten cemetery sits up on a hill not far from the parking lot for the Hamlin Lake beach in Ludington State Park. Long before the area was a state park it had a sawmill town called Hamlin. It was founded in 1852 by lumberman Charles Mears. He built a wooden dam on the Big Sable River and the town continued to prosper until the dam broke in 1888.
I shared this photo as part of a presentation about a year ago and it was after that an older gentleman came up to me. He told me that he was a ranger at Ludington State Park in the 60s and that an old coffin had washed up onto the banks of the Big Sable River near the mouth at Lake Michigan. From the age of the coffin and corpse, they figured it was someone from the old town of Hamlin who was buried next to the river. He told me they re-buried it in the old cemetery on the hill. I have never been able to confirm the story with a newspaper article but I have no reason to doubt what he told me.
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Mission Hill Cemetery sits on a hill near Bay Mills overlooking Spectacle Lake and Lake Superior. It is an old and historic cemetery and in the middle is a white picket fence. Buried inside are the remains of eight crew members of the S.S. Myron. The steamer sank in a storm in November of 1919 near Whitefish Point. The crew escaped in lifeboats but unfortunately, the little boats did not save their lives. Eight bodies were found onshore encased in ice during the spring of 1920. The crewmen were buried in Mission Hill Cemetery spending eternity together. The captain who stayed with the ship was saved while floating on a piece of wreckage.
There a beautiful overlook across from the entrance to the cemetery. It is a beautiful spot to watch the ships sail past or take in a sunset.
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Between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo is Fort Custer National Cemetery. The cemetery was created in 1943 and became a national cemetery in 1981. The cemetery is a beautiful place and as I drove through I saw large expanses of beautifully mowed green grass. I thought it was strange that I did not see any headstones. It was when I got out of my jeep and looked that I noticed all the headstones evenly spaced carefully placed on the sacred ground.
The entrance is known as the Avenue of Flags with 152 flagpoles proudly standing along the road that leads into the cemetery. I wanted to stop and take a photo but there was a funeral precession preparing for a ceremony. I had planned on going back to the cemetery in may to take some photos for Memorial Day while but unfortunately I am not able to.
If you are ever near this cemetery or the other national cemetery in Holly and Grand Rapids be sure to take a drive through them to remind yourself of the true price of freedom.
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St. Mary’s Church stands quietly in the small town of Indianville northwest of Burt Lake. Behind the small country church, is an old cemetery marked with white wooden crosses. As you can see from the photos, I visited in the fall, but I thought it would be a good time to share my pics with Memorial Day coming up.
There were also some newer headstones in the cemetery, and this one fore Julius C. Lewis stood out as his headstone notes he was awarded the Purple Heart and a POW. Thank you to all the veterans and especially the ones who gave their lives for our freedom. We need to remember their sacrifices all year long.
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Lakeside Cemetery was established in 1877 when the city of Port Huron, purchased 148 acres from local resident John Hoffman. The Soldiers’ Lots were donated to the United States in 1881, when 135 remains from Old Fort Gratiot were re-interred at the cemetery. There were two installations known as Fort Gratiot; the first dated from 1814-1821, the second from 1828-1879. Both were located on the same site, on the west bank of the St. Clair River, approximately two miles south of Lakeside Cemetery. Of the 135 interments in the soldiers’ lot, only 35 are known. On July 7, 1884, the federal government dedicated a monument at the Lakeside Cemetery Soldiers’ Lot to honor the unknown soldiers from Fort Gratiot who fell victims to the cholera epidemic, July 4, to 18, 1832.
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