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RIDGEWOOD
CEMETERY DOCUMENTARY
North
Liberty, Iowa
By
Karyl Bonnett, North Liberty, IA
As
one meanders through the aged gravestones of Ridgewood Cemetery, perched
on the crest of a lovely wooded hill on Scales Bend Road off Hwy 965,
one is struck by the number of simple white stones countersunk with a
large shield indicating the interred resident is a war veteran. Other
than a stone for Guy Stewart, a veteran of the Spanish American War,
they represent participants in the War of the Rebellion commonly
referred to as the Civil War.
The surnames of the first Penn Township settlers included Gaylor,
Dennison, Scales, Wray, Wein, Alt, Purdoo, Dollarhide, Clark, Harless,
Waterson, Asian, Napier, Crozier, Gilbert, Herington, Chamberlin,
Moreland, Zeller, Kepford, Bowman, Hawk, Lininger and others. One can
find tombstones of most these settlers and large numbers of their
descendants in Ridgewood Cemetery.
The preponderance of these settlers issued from Pennsylvania. For
that reason, Francis Bowman and his wife Margaret, both buried in
Ridgewood , suggested that the township, which originally included
Madison Township, be named after the founder of Pennsylvania, William
Penn; thus Penn Township.
Martha
Bowman, school teacher and daughter
of Francis and Margaret, gave the official name to our city, North
Liberty.
David Crozier, early settler and veteran, fought in the Blackhawk
War (1832). Blackhawk and
his tribe were disenfranchised from their homes near Rock Island and
moved forcibly to Iowa along the Des Moines River. Unhappy with this
move, Blackhawk “illegally” returned to Illinois resulting in the
hostilities referred to as the Blackhawk War.
Illinois called for volunteers. David, living at that time in
Edgar Co. Illinois with his wife Margaret, was in the first group to
enlist making sergeant in the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Illinois
Volunteers.
In 1840, Crozier moved his family to Penn Township. His cabin,
which eventually burned down, hosted the first school. His daughter,
Nancy married Nathaniel Scales in 1842 making history by being the first
marriage in Penn Township. Nathaniel lived in the area now known as the
Jolly Roger Campground. Scales Bend Road, on which Ridgewood Cemetery is
located, is named after Nathaniel Scales.
Almost
every able-bodied male in Penn Township volunteered to serve in the War
of the Rebellion, which helps to explain the large number of military
stones in Ridgewood. However, not all the Civil War veterans fought in
Iowa units. John Arnold was in the Pennsylvania Calvary; Wm Evans and
Harmon Franklin, Indiana infantry: Jacob Price and John Ramsey,
Pennsylvania infantry; and Varner Lindsay, W. Virginia infantry.
The Civil War wrecked havoc on the families of Penn Township,
North Liberty and Iowa as a whole. Over 80, 000 men were mustered from
the state of Iowa. This was over half the able-bodied men.
Fathers
and sons are buried at Vicksburg, Wilson’s Creek, Shiloh, Champion
Hills, and hundreds of other locations. Large numbers lie in ignominious
unmarked graves.
A
correspondent of the Iowa “State Register” after a re-union
excursion to Shiloh in 1884, reported that over 3,500 union troops were
interred at Shiloh Cemetery. “They represent 203 regiments from
thirteen different states. Nearly two thirds of those interred were not
identified. Of the known dead, Iowa had the third highest casualties.”
Only Illinois and Ohio lost more men. The correspondent estimated that
up to a fourth of the unidentified union dead were Iowans.
David
Stewart, a Civil War surgeon and physician from North Liberty, reported
that 3,000 Iowans died in battle, 10,000 died from wounds and over
10,000 more were discharged from sickness caused by conditions of
service. A small gray stone about a foot high in Ridgewood Cemetery
marks the resting-place of Stewart, surgeon in the 28th Iowa Infantry.
A walk through Ridgewood
Cemetery is a stroll through history: not just of Penn Township and
North Liberty but of the World. The settlers all came from someplace
else; not just from other states. Some came from other countries. They
brought their customs, religions and the spirit of adventure.
And rumor has it that Ridgewood Cemetery may also have been
the site of a native American burial mound.
My
thanks to Joan Alt Belknap whose book
A History of North Liberty
and Penn Township piqued my interest in local history and provided
much of the material for this article. This book may be checked out from
the North Liberty library.
Copyright
ã
2006 by Karyl Bonnett
Editor's
Note: The author has been busy photographing all of the
gravestones in Ridgewood Cemetery and as of Mar 2023, there are 1216 photos posted
on the Gravestone Photo Project.
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