Last time, I shared some stories with you about how Elgin’s Bluff City Cemetery was established and the people buried there. I’ve got even more for you this week. This first grave marker is another example of what happens when you get curious and start sniffing around for answers. I often come up with something I wasn’t expecting.

This small monument caught my eye because it was made for a child and because it looked a bit unusual. Children’s graves usually feature lambs or cherubs. But this pillar marker is for Fern Wilder Metcalf, who was born on Feb. 10, 1895 and died of scarlet fever on Feb. 13, 1898 to parents Maynard Mayo Metcalf and Ella Wilder Metcalf.

Famous Witness

Fern’s zoologist father has a special place in history. Maynard Metcalf was the only scientist allowed to testify on the stand as a defense witness at the 1925 Scopes anti-evolution trial. The likes of famous orator William Jennings Bryan (who died five days after the trial ended) and attorney Clarence Darrow were part of this history-making event in Dayton, Tenn.

The Metcalfs did not live in Elgin, but spent much of their time in Ohio when Maynard taught at his alma mater, Oberlin College. Fern died in Baltimore, Md. when Metcalf was teaching at Goucher College there. The Metcalfs did have another daughter, Mildred, who lived to adulthood. Maynard and Ella eventually retired to Winter Park, Fla. where he died in 1940. The couple is interred there at Oaklawn Cemetery.

Fern is buried near Ella’s parents so it’s my guess that the Metcalfs felt it was a proper place to bury her at the time. While Fern was only three when she passed away, I have no doubt they never forgot her.

Birth of the Elgin Watch Co.

I don’t know how I stumbled upon Augusta Gronberg’s simple grave since it’s flat against the ground and not flashy in any way. But like Fern’s, it was different and made me want to know more.

Born in Sweden in 1858, Augusta Storm emigrated to America in her early teens. She eventually went to work in the finishing room at the Elgin Watch Co., a mainstay of the community. The company was first incorporated in August 1864 as the National Watch Company.

Elgin was chosen as the factory site and the city was asked to donate 35 acres for that purpose. A derelict farm was chosen but the owners refused to sell unless the city purchased their entire 71 acres for $3,550. Four Elgin businessmen agreed and donated the required 35 acres to the watch company, which was re-organized in April 1865. The factory was completed in 1866 and the company officially changed its name to the Elgin National Watch Company in 1874.

Finding Love on the Job

Augusta’s factory boss was a man named Oscar Gronberg and apparently, they hit it off. The couple wed in 1879 and would have at least six children together.

By 1888, the factory was producing about 7,500 movements per week and employed roughly 2,300 people.I learned that they were split 50/50 between men and women but not so in their pay. The women earned about $6 per week while some of the men earned as much as $3 per day and this was for a six-day workweek.

In 1896, Augusta contracted the tuberculosis that would eventually end her life at age 42 on April 25, 1900. Oscar remarried a year later to Ella Reed and they had a daughter, Grace. He died in California in 1929 but was brought back to Illinois for burial at nearby West Aurora Cemetery.

During World War I, the U.S. Army had the Elgin factory train more than 350 men to make the precision repairs required in the battlefields. During World War II, all civilian work stopped and Elgin made military watches, chronometers for the U.S. Navy, fuses for artillery shells, and altimeters/instruments for aircraft. The company was awarded 10 Army-Navy “E” awards, for fulfilling contracts ahead of schedule.

In 1964, the Elgin Watch Co. moved operations to Blaney, S.C., and the town was renamed “Elgin.” The original factory in Elgin, Ill. was demolished in 1966 and manufacturing was discontinued in Elgin, S.C. in 1968. By 1972, it was all over for Elgin. But the company had made a lasting mark on Elgin and the watch-buying world.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

In the past, I’ve shared with you a number of tree-shaped markers in different sizes and shapes (from tiny stumps to enormous trees) at various cemeteries. Elgin has a number of them, too. The ones I’m featuring here don’t have the words “Woodmen of the World” on them, but some of the men had ties to the fraternal organization.

One of the most handsome is for New York-born dairy owner Phineas H. Smith (1811-1872) and his wife, Jane (1811-1902). Phineas was among the first Elgin residents to begin selling and shipping milk to nearby Chicago businesses in the 1850s. I’m not sure when this tree was made but I suspect it might have been after Jane died, not Phineas.

Then there’s the Henry family’s tree, which has individual log-shaped markers for the family members. I don’t know if any of the men were Woodmen members but the inclusion of an axe and mallet motif indicates at least one might have been.

Tree stumps tend to indicate a life cut short but among the four Donaldsons buried at Bluff City Cemetery, none died particularly young. Steven Donaldson (1840-1904) hailed from Sweden and worked as a carpenter, so you could say he already had sawdust in his blood.

There’s even a small twig-themed “D” marker in the family plot.

The Gale monument, while it has no Woodmen seal, is (at least to me) a WOW one because of the axe in the top, along with the mallet and the dove above the inscription. All are WOW symbols. Ward Gale worked at the Elgin Watch Co. factory and I suspect he was a member of good standing in Woodmen of the World. He married Ida Keller in 1881 in Indiana, but they had no children together. Ida died in 1900 at age 42 and Ward died a year later at age 43.

Pioneer Log Cabin

Right in front of the Gale monument is a lovely rarity that I’ve yet to see before, a log cabin-shaped monument. Walter S. Arnold (the Elgin sculptor I met with before visiting this cemetery) has actually found 40 cabin-style monuments, mostly located in Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Michigan. He mentioned it to me as a “must see” at Bluff City Cemetery and he was right.

I don’t know who created this amazing monument but it was built as a replica of pioneer Benjamin Burritt’s 1837 cabin located in Hanover Township (now Hanover Park). That’s about 10 miles east of Elgin. Benjamin was born in 1796 and died in 1880. So the cabin and its individual logs with initials on them were moved from the old Channing Street Cemetery to Bluff City Cemetery.

Benjamn Burritt held several civic positions in Elgin and acquired a good bit of land during his life. He and his wife, Katy, married in 1814 and had six children. Son Peter’s second wife, Rebecca McBride, was later known as the wealthiest woman in Elgin. At the time of their marriage, he was much older than she was. At the time of his death in 1892, she was only in her 30s and inherited his considerable real estate holdings. Peter is buried in Bluff City Cemetery.

Although she remarried to William Gilbert in 1894, Rebecca started construction of a downtown Elgin building as a tribute to her first husband in 1914. However, except for the street level, the upper floors of the Burritt remained unfinished for over 75 years. It wasn’t completed until the 1990s.

Another of Benjamin and Katy’s children was Josiah, born in 1820. He became a doctor and married Ellen Whitney in his 40s. Together, they had three children that lived to adulthood. A towering tree monument marks the graves of Josiah and Ellen.

I still have one more installment coming in my Bluff City Cemetery series. I hope you’ll return to learn more about this special burial ground.

After I finished visiting Walter at his studio, I was ready to head to nearby Bluff City Cemetery. It was a cold day with occasional flurries but the roads were in great shape for a driver like me not used to icy conditions.

Located about 40 miles west of Chicago, Elgin’s Bluff City Cemetery (BCC) has an interesting background because it is the third municipal cemetery in Elgin’s history. Before that, the Channing Street Cemetery located nearby had been the site of local burials. The land for BCC was formerly owned by the Gifford family and then the Whitcomb Family. Albert Marckhofff, the first sextant, laid out the first 12 sections, planted the trees and improved the land. I should add that the city of Elgin itself is located in adjacent Kane County while BCC is located in Cook County, Ill.

Because the Channing Street Cemetery was reaching capacity, they moved the graves from there to the new Bluff City Cemetery, which currently covers 108 acres and contains more than 72,000 burials (according to Elgin’s web site). I think that 72,000 burials figure is a capacity number since Find a Grave lists about 32,000 actual memorials. The new cemetery was dedicated on Sept. 8, 1889. So when you see a grave marker with a date before that, be aware that they used to be at the Channing Street Cemetery.

I learned that if there were no family members to pay the cost of moving the graves back in the 1880s, the remains stayed at Channing. That cemetery was officially closed in 1945 and two years later, the city declared all remains had been removed. But when the foundation for Channing School was dug in 1968, many remains surfaced during the digging and were brought to Bluff City for re-burial in a common grave.

A black granite marker now memorializes those souls that were once left behind. It was a project undertaken by author/historian Steven Stroud, who died in April 2019.

A Grand Receiving Vault

BCC’s large receiving tomb was built in 1903, that date is at the top. It was used to temporarily store bodies in the winter months when the ground was frozen so hard it was difficult to dig. From some postings on Reddit, I learned that they’ve opened it up during tours for people to look inside. You can find pictures here. From what I can see, it could hold at least 50 bodies at a time.

I have a soft spot for receiving tombs since I don’t see many of them in the South. It doesn’t usually get cold enough to warrant their construction. They served a useful purpose then that is now taken care of by refrigeration.

Death of a Mortician

Located not far from the BCC’s receiving tomb is a mausoleum that I noticed had some lovely stained glass inside. While the deceased passed away in 1950, I thought the stained glass was fairly classic in nature.

Born in Wisconsin in 1873, Fred Norris worked as a mortician in Elgin, Ill. for about 50 years. According to the book Elgin: Days Gone By (written by Elgin’s then-mayor E.C. Alft), Fred initially partnered with local mortician James Palmer. In 1915, Norris purchased a limousine hearse, the first in the city, and erected Elgin’s first “funeral parlor” at 226 East Chicago Street. When expanded and remodeled in 1926, it was said to be the largest in Illinois. Later known as Norris Mortuary, in 1935 it was the first building in Elgin to be air conditioned.

The bodies prepared by Elgin undertakers like Fred were often interred in Elgin-made caskets. Elgin Silver Plate Company, a casket hardware producer, was founded in Elgin around 1892. In 1926, the company was acquired by the Western Casket Hardware Company (founded in 1903) . Around 1928, the company’s production line was expanded to metal caskets, which more and more became the main product of the firm. For that reason, the company’s name was changed to Elgin Metal Casket Company.

After World War II, the company concentrated on manufacturing metal casket shells which it distributed through an organization known as Elgin Associates, which completed the casket shells with handles and/or interiors. In peak years, the company shipped up to 70,000 throughout the country. President Calvin Coolidge is buried in one and in 1963, Elgin provided the casket in which President Kennedy’s body was taken from Dallas to Washington, DC.

Fred married Blanche Crank in 1906 and they had two children, Russell and Dorothy. Fred and Blanche had divorced by 1930. Fred and the children lived at the funeral home according to the 1930 U.S. Census, a common practice in those days. Russell followed in his father’s footsteps and was a funeral director in the Elgin area for many years.

Mystery of the Angel

Not far from the Norris mausoleum is a monument of an angel bearing a cross known as the Hendee-Brown monument. Vermont native Huldah Standish Washburn Hendee came to Illinois from Vermont sometime after 1850 with her husband, Homer, who was a farmer. Homer died in 1865 and is buried in New York. Huldah died at the age of 80 in 1874. Because of that date, I’m guessing she was initially buried in the Channing Street Cemetery and moved when BCC opened.

Huldah’s daughter, Annette, married Samuel Brown in 1842. The only information I could find about Samuel was that (according to the 1880 U.S. Census), he traveled for a grocery store. The couple had one daughter, Hattie, who was a school teacher who married Arthur Curtis. Arthur is listed in the census once as a tinsmith and later as a radiator repairman.

What puzzles me is that I’m not sure how a family that appears to be of humble means paid for such a grand monument, which I believe was likely placed after Annette or her husband Samuel died. Annette died in 1903 and Samuel in 1896.

The book Elgin: Days Gone By notes that it was made of Italian marble and that “after it was placed on the Hendee-Brown plot, it was shipped to Paris for an exhibition at the expense of the Italian government.” A 1993 Chicago Tribune article stated that it’s made of pink granite and weighs 10,000 lbs.

A History in White Bronze

I am a huge fan of white bronze monuments (actually zinc) and I found one at Bluff City that I fell in love with. The Scofield family did what they could to record their history on one large white bronze monument. On it are the names of several Scofields, yet only three are buried at Bluff City.

A native of South Westerlo in Albany County, N.Y., David Chicester Scofield was born in 1803. He married Sally King in 1826 and they had seven children together (including a set of twins) before she died at the age of 33 in 1842. While her name is on the monument, she is buried in Mexicoville, N.Y. Their son, Reuben, who died in 1847 at the age of 7 is buried beside her. His name is also on the BCC monument. Their daughter, Louise Scofield Herbert, who died in 1866, buried in Roseburg, Oreg., is memorialized on the BCC monument.

David moved from New York after Reuben’s death and settled in Elgin, hoping to purchase land to start a tree nursery. At age 50 in 1854, he married 27-year-old Emily Larkin. He and Emily had one son, Frank, in 1855 but he died at the age of 9 in 1865. I suspect his grave was moved from Channing Street to BCC after it opened. Emily was active in church and missionary causes, especially the Christian Temperance Union.

The roots of the Scofield family history is summed up on one of the many panels.

Other names on the Scofield monument are granddaughter Flora Scofield, the daughter of David Scofield’s son Lewis, who died in infancy. Emily Scofield, David’s second wife, died in 1884 at the age of 57. David would die in 1891 at the ripe old age of 87 having outlived both wives and a number of his children. Son Lewis died in 1905 and is buried in the BCC plot while daughter Charlotte died in 1905. She is buried in Florida with her family.

The Scofields lived in a Romanesque Revival-style mansion on 50 N. Spring St. for several years. It was eventually purchased in 1892 for $12,000 by Samuel and Alfred Church, stepsons of Gail Borden (who was a man despite the feminine-sounding first name). The Church brothers wanted to memorialize their stepfather, who invented condensed milk. They donated the mansion to Elgin with the stipulation that it would always be known as the Gail Borden Public Library. The library was later moved to a new larger building in 1968 but the mansion still stands today. I believe a restaurant operates out of it now.

A Curious Footnote

In doing research on the Scofields, I tried to find an obituary for David that might sum up his professional achievements. The only article I could find was this one, which while noting his nursery-owning history, ended by questioning the deceased man’s sanity. I have no idea if the issues regarding Scofield’s will were ever satisfactorily settled. The fact that Emily was deeply involved in missionary causes suggests his bequests were in keeping with her wishes when she was still alive. I’m wondering if adult children Charlotte and Lewis were unhappy about that.

There’s a lot more ground to cover at Bluff City Cemetery so I’ll be back with more soon.