I barely scratched the surface at Woodland Cemetery last week so I hope you’ve come back for more.

Woodland has some unique children’s grave markers that I’ll refer to as “baby bed” graves because they resemble a child’s bed. While I have seen some akin to this because their framing looks like a bed or cradle, none had stone “pillows” as part of them. People sometimes call them “garden graves” because they plant flowers in them.

The first one belongs to three children of Jefferson Scott Polk and Julia Herndon Polk. Born in 1831 in Kentucky, J.S. Polk became an attorney. He married Julia Herndon in 1853. In the 1850s, Polk formed a partnership with Judge P.M. Casady and M.M. Crocker (both buried at Woodland). In 1861, Crocker entered the military service, and the firm became Casady & Polk, continuing until 1864.

Jefferson Scott Pike and his wife, Julia Herndon Polk, in their later years.

After Judge Casady retired, F.M. Hubbell (whom we talked about last week) took his place and for 25 years Polk & Hubbell was synonymous with the “push and enterprise in the town” (according to one account). Along with Hubbell, Polk helped found the Equitable Life Insurance Company. He was also instrumental in getting Des Moines’ street car service up and running, which included using it for mail delivery. When he died in 1907, one account of Polk’s funeral said 100 uniformed street car employees served as a guard of honor.

Jefferson and Julia are thought to have seven children buried at Woodland. Three of them (Mary, Lutie, and Daniel) all died under the age of 10 between 1863 and 1871. You can no longer see their names on the circles on the headboard.

The Polk children’s “bed” grave marker was recently restored. Three stone pillows rest against the frame. Their parents, J.S. and Julia Polk, are buried beside them.

I knew before visiting Woodland that the “baby bed” grave markers were in the process of being restored thanks to hard-working volunteers. Jean Wilson and Kelly Penman have unearthed these “beds”, some of which were sunken deep into the ground, along with reattaching the frames and cleaning off years of grime. The colorful pavers and gravel in the Polk “bed’ have replaced the thick weeds that were there before.

Herndon Hall was built in 1881 in the Queen Anne style. It was designed by the Des Moines architectural firm of Foster & Liebbe for the Polk family. (Photo Source: C.A. Tucker, Wikipedia)

Understandably, Julia greatly mourned her little ones. She would often spend hours mourning her children at Woodland, sometimes sitting beside their grave after it had turned dark outside. Worried about her, Jefferson required the carriage driver to stay at the cemetery during her visits until she was ready to return to their home, Herndon Hall.

Behind the Polk “baby bed” are two more for the Miller and Turner families. I don’t know the names of the children. They were still being repaired when I was at Woodland. Jean was kind enough to let me post these photos of the Miller “baby bed” grave, before and after.

The Miller children’s grave before it was fully unearthed. (Photo source: Jean Wilson)

This is what the Miller grave looks like now. (Photo source: Jean Wilson)

In a another part of the cemetery is a “baby bed” marker belonging to the Scribner family. A native of Connecticut, Henry Scribner was born in 1822 and lived in New York until the 1850s. He married Abigail Farnham in 1853 in Watertown, N.Y. Sometime after that, they moved to Des Moines. Henry found work in real estate and did well.

This is what the Scribner bed looked like before Kelly G. Penman unearthed it. (Photo source: Jean Wilson)

Until recently, the Scribner “bed” was in pieces and deep in the ground. Careful restoration brought it back to its original glory. The children’s names (Roger and Jennie) are etched on the pillows.

Their first child, Jennie, was born on Feb. 6, 1856 in Des Moines but died only a handful of weeks later. Two more children, Minnie and George, followed in 1857 and 1861, and they would live to adulthood. Their last child, Roger, was born in January 1869 but died exactly six months later.

Henry Scribner died in 1882 under mysterious circumstances. In September 1882, he was found lying unconscious in front of a coal office on Des Moines’ Sixth Street, having been brutally assaulted. He died the next day of his injuries, with no witnesses coming forward to name who’d done it. Despite a $500 reward offered by Governor Buren Sherman, the culprit was never found. Abigail died in 1904 at the age of 74.

Jean Wilson was able (with good old-fashioned “elbow grease”) to dig out the pieces of Harry’s marker. (Photo source: Jean Wilson)

The “baby bed” for Harry Ashley is a single. (Photo Source: Jean Wilson, Find a Grave)

Born on May 28, 1881, Harry was the son of brick mason William Martin Ashley and Rebecca Smith Ashley. He died on July 1, 1882 having lived just a few months over a year. The top of the headboard says “HARRY” and above the pillow on the inside of the headboard says “Our Darling”.

Toward the center of the cemetery are three mausoleums situated beside each other that puzzled me when I first saw them. A large white one, a brick one with only a last name and one almost completely overtaken by the ground it was built into.

The Baker mausoleum on the right is a bit of a mystery.

I could find out nothing about the Baker mausoleum on the far right, which appears to be crumbling. In the center, marked with a date of 1900, is the Giles brick mausoleum. A New York native, Elliott Marion Giles moved to Iowa in the 1860s and married Alice Wigton in 1868. Records indicate he worked as a druggist but later as an insurance salesman. They had three children together.

When Elliott died in 1919, he was living in Tulsa, Okla. with Alice, who died later in 1927. Why the vault is dated 1900 is interesting since Elliott Giles was supposedly the first person recorded to have been interred within it.

By comparison, the mausoleum on the far left was in stellar condition. From the small plaque on the front, I learned it was the final resting place of Iowa Governor Samuel Merrill (1868-1872). It wasn’t until I got home that I found out that the Merrill mausoleum had looked just as bad as its neighbors only a few years ago.

Iowa Governor Samuel Merrill worked in education, farming, and retail before entering politics.

Born in Turner, Maine in 1822, Samuel Merrill became a teacher and moved to the South. Finding his strong abolitionist views unpopular there, he returned to New England to try farming then entered the mercantile business. Merrill was first married to Catherine Thomas, who died in 1847, 14 months after their marriage. In January 1851, he married Elizabeth Hill of Buxton, Maine.

In 1854, Merrill was elected on the abolitionist ticket to the New Hampshire legislature. The Merrills moved to McGregor, Iowa in 1856 and Samuel was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 1859. In 1862, he was commissioned Colonel of the 21st Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment, serving until seriously wounded at the Battle of Big Black River Bridge in May 1863 as part of the Vicksburg Campaign.

General Ulysses S. Grant, who led the campaign, referred to Merrill as “eminently brilliant and daring” and that had Merrill not been a general officer at the time, he would have recommended him for the Medal of Honor.

Due to extensive damage caused by a falling oak tree and a century of neglect, the final resting place of Gov. Samuel Merrill became home to raccoons and opossums. (Photo source: Patriot Outreach web page)

In 1867, Merrill was elected Governor of Iowa on the Republican ticket, and served for two terms, from 1868 to 1872. His record as a civic-minded legislator and patriotic Army officer gave him significant political capital in postwar Iowa.

Samuel and Elizabeth Merrill had four children, three of them dying in childhood. Their son, Jere, lived to the age of 69. The couple eventually moved to California, where Elizabeth died in 1888. In 1897, Samuel was in a streetcar accident and never recovered. His remains were sent back to Iowa and interred in the Merrill mausoleum.

Over time, the Merrill mausoleum fell into disrepair. A falling oak tree damaged it and neglect adding to it becoming a haven for raccoons and opossums. As you can see in the photo above, it was in terrible shape.

The Merrill mausoleum as it looked in September 2017.

In 2016, several organizations and individual Iowans came together to bring the Merrill mausoleum back to its former glory, including Patriot Outreach, former State Senator Dennis Black, Westbrooke Construction, and others. Two-time Iowa Governor Terry Branstad’s foundation, the Iowa History Fund, donated money as well. A special ceremony was held at Woodland in June 2016 to unveil the refurbished mausoleum.

One mystery was solved during the renovation — the whereabouts of Elizabeth Merrill’s remains. Cemetery records did not indicate that she had ever been interred in the mausoleum back in 1888 so nobody knew for sure. When the Merrill mausoleum was opened, her remains were found there with her husband’s.

Next time, I’ll be talking about more mausoleums at Woodland and some of the more unique markers there.

So why Iowa?

If you’ve read my blog for very long, you know that my best friend, Christi, moved from Atlanta to Omaha in 2000. When I started cemetery “hopping” about six years ago, I started dragging her across Nebraska (with some stops in Kansas) to find cool cemeteries to explore.

So in the summer of 2017, as I planned my September visit, I decided it might be fun to fly into Des Moines, Iowa and we could stop by some cemeteries on our way back to Omaha. I knew we could hit some good ones if I planned it right.

A postcard of Woodland’s original formal entrance, comprised of the superintendent’s office attached to a chapel. They were torn down sometime before 1915.

After Christi picked me up at the Des Moines Airport, we swung by Glendale Cemetery so I could photograph the grave of a Medal of Honor recipient. The rest of the cemetery wasn’t that remarkable so we didn’t linger. My goal was the spend a few hours at Des Moines’ oldest cemetery, Woodland Cemetery. As we drove through the front gates, I could tell it was going to be a great place to “hop” around.

The pillars of Woodland Cemetery’s entrance were placed in 1915. The ironwork on top of Woodland’s gates was replaced in 2012.

Woodland was established in 1848 when five farmers donated land for the purpose of providing a city cemetery. Originally 5.5 acres, it was first called Fort Des Moines Cemetery with the first burial taking place in 1850.

The city took ownership of the cemetery in 1857, and purchased an additional 36.5 acres in 1864. Since then, Woodland’s coverage has expanded to 69 acres and now houses over 80,000 graves. A receiving vault was added in 1888 to store the bodies of those who died during Iowa’s cold winters when the ground was too hard to dig. They had to wait until the spring thaw to bury them. I don’t know how many bodies it held, but it looks fairly large to me.

Iowa winters are bitterly cold so a receiving vault to hold bodies until the spring thaw was built in 1888.

Within Woodland Cemetery is St. Ambrose Cemetery, which was relocated from the south side of Des Moines in 1866. It is on the back side of Woodland and we did explore it a little. Emmanuel Jewish Cemetery, founded in 1871, is also within Woodland and an an Independent Order of Odd Fellows Cemetery.

Woodland’s World War II Gold Star Memorial includes about 40 soldiers’ graves.

To the right of the front gates, you will find Woodland’s World War I Gold Star Memorial. The area contains the graves of about 40 Iowa soldiers who were originally buried in France after the war but later moved for burial in their home state.

Emory Jenison Pike as a cadet at West Point at the turn of the century.

Woodland has the honor of being the final resting place for a Medal of Honor recipient.  The son of the Rev. Elias Jenison Pike and Catherine Ricketts Pike, Emory Jenison Pike was born in 1876 in Columbus City, Iowa. In 1902, he married Ethel Fowler Trigg in Manhattan, N.Y. They would have five children who lived to adulthood.

A graduate of West Point in 1901, Pike served with the Second United States Cavalry in Cuba and the U.S. In 1914, he was a Distinguished Service Graduate from the Army’s School of the Line, and in 1915 completed the Army Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.

In World War I, Lt. Col. Pike earned the Medal of Honor for rendering aid to a wounded soldier during heavy artillery shelling on September 15, 2018 near Vandieres, France. He was severely wounded when another shell burst near him. While waiting to be brought to the rear, Lt. Col. Pike continued in command, still directing the reorganization until the position could be held. He later died of the wounds he received.

Lt. Col. Emory J. Pike was 41 at the time of his death in 1918.

Major General J.M. Wainwright, Assistant Chief of Staff, 82nd Division, wrote to Lt. Col. Pike’s mother to inform her of his death: “He has been recommended for the Medal of Honor…When my time comes I only hope I can die as gallantly as did your son…” His youngest son, Zebulon, was only four when Lt. Col. Pike died.

Buried close to Lt. Col. Pike is Captain Edward O. Fleur. A native of Eksjo, Sweden, Captain Fleur was the son of C.J. Fleur and Mary Swanson Fleur. Born in 1876, Capt. Fleur had taken a three-year course in the Royal Swedish Military School in Stockholm before his arrival in America in 1890. He married Minnie Lawson in 1903.

Edward O. Fleur had worked his way up to the rank of Captain when he died in World War I in 1918.

Captain Fleur was active in the Iowa National Guard and served in various places during the first decade of the 1900s, including two years at Fort Yellowstone in Wyoming (the military managed the national parks in their early days) and the Philippines. He had attained the rank of Captain by the time he left Iowa for France in November 1917 with the Machine Gun Company of the 168th Infantry.

On May 27, 1918, Capt. Fleur was severely gassed at Village Negre and taken to the hospital in Baccarat. He died shortly thereafter and was buried in the cemetery at Baccarat, but his remains were sent home to America in 1921 for burial at Woodland.

Captain Fleur’s wife, Minnie, is buried across the lane from him.

As far as I know, Capt. Fleur and Minnie never had any children. Because women were not allowed to be buried with the soldiers, they buried Minnie across the lane from Capt. Fleur when she died in 1930. That was as close as they could get.

Near the Gold Star Memorial is the impressive Hubbell family mausoleum. One of its unique features is a casket elevator, which is used to lower remains to the lower level where all the family members have been laid to rest. I would love to get a look at that!

The Hubbell family mausoleum has the distinction of having an elevator for lowering caskets down to the lower level.

Born in 1839 in Huntington, Conn. to Francis and Augusta Church Hubbell, Frederick Marion Hubbell left Connecticut with his father and arrived in Fort Des Moines on May 7, 1855. Hubbell found work at the U.S. Land Office. During the 1860s and 1870s, Hubbell began building his Des Moines real estate empire by buying property in the downtown area and in a valuable industrial district known as the Factory Addition.

Frederick Marion Hubbell made his fortune in real estate in Des Moines’ early days.

Hubbell was also instrumental in many early Des Moines industries. He partnered with three others to start Des Moines’ first streetcar line in 1866, helped found Equitable Life Insurance Company of Iowa in 1867, helped establish the Des Moines Water Works in 1871, and created the Narrow Gauge Railway Construction Company in 1880.

A roaring lion’s head emblazons the door of the Hubbell mausoleum.

Hubbell married Frances Cooper in 1863 and they had three children together. The marriage of their daughter, Beulah, to Swedish Count Carl Axel Wachtmeister in 1899 at the Hubbell mansion (Terrace Hill) was reported in many newspapers across the country. Count Wachtmeiser and Frances had one son, Frederick. The three of them are buried together in Sweden. Frances Hubbell died in 1924 and Frederick Hubbell died in 1930.

Built in 1869, Terrace Hill is now the home of Des Moines’ Governor Kim Reynolds and her family.

Originally the home of Des Moines’ first millionaire, Benjamin Franklin Allen, Terrace Hill was designed by Chicago architect William Boyington and completed in 1869. Allen sold it to Hubbell in 1884. Hubbell loved Terrace Hill and added many of its most well-known features such as the stained glass window and stunning chandelier.

A Hubbell lived in Terrace Hill until the family’s youngest son Grover’s death in 1956. It stood empty until 1971 when the Hubbell family donated the home to the State of Iowa to be used as the official residence of Iowa’s first family. (Note:  Kind reader Beth Jordan let me know that F.M. Hubbell’s great-great-grandson, Fred Hubbell, is currently running for governor. So there may be a Hubbell back in Terrace Hill after all. The current governor is Kim Reynolds.)

By contrast, the Allens are not interred in a fine mausoleum. As F.M. Hubbell’s fortunes were rising, B.F. Allen’s were plummeting.

Benjamin Franklin Allen was Des Moines’ first millionaire. But he would die a pauper in 1914 in California.

B.F. Allen’s uncle, Captain James Allen, one of the founders of Fort Des Moines in 1843, was instrumental in his nephew’s start in Iowa. In 1846, Captain Allen left for a new post, but died en route leaving all of his business holdings and land to his 18 year-old-nephew.

Over time, Allen became a a pillar of Des Moines society. He was a director or president of insurance companies, railroads, banks, the gas company, and various industrial firms, and even served a term in the Iowa Senate. Unfortunately, a series of poor business decisions resulted in charges of fraud and graft, along with a financial downturn in the market in the 1870s, led to Allen selling Terrace Hill to the Hubbell family in 1884.

The grave markers of Ben Franklin Allen and his wife, Mary Arathusa Allen, reflect their much reduced circumstances at the time of their deaths. (Photo Source: State Historical Society of Iowa)

When Allen died in 1914 in Hollywood, Calif. (his stone incorrectly says 1912), he was barely scraping by. A friend had to buy Allen’s burial plot for him, right next to the plot of his wife, Arathusa, who died in 1874 (some say from the stress of losing their fortune). I did not see their markers myself but am using an online picture so you can see the simplicity of them.

I’ve barely gotten past the front gates so I’ll have much more to share next time about Woodland Cemetery.