I’m wrapping up my series on Iowa City’s Oakland Cemetery today, which brings my July 2019 Iowa Road Trip to an end as well.

Last week, some of the veteran graves I shared with you were made of white bronze (zinc). These are some of my favorite markers because in this part of the country, I don’t see too many of them. Because the Monumental White Bronze Co. of Bridgeport, Conn. had a factory in Des Moines, Iowa, zinc markers are easy to find in Hawkeye state cemeteries.

When I came across the Carleton family white bronze marker at Oakland, I was flummoxed. So many little children’s names were on it and almost all had died in infancy. Figuring out their story took a little time but it was worth it.

The Carleton Family

Born in Maryland in 1812, James P. Carleton graduated from Pennsylvania’s Washington College (now known as Washington and Jefferson College). He married Louisa Patterson in Indiana. Eventually, the couple settled in Iowa City, Iowa around 1841 and James became a well-regarded judge of the Fourth Judicial District.

Over the course of their marriage, Louisa would bear six children. Five died in childhood. One, Cornelia, died at age 16. I don’t have any information on their causes of death. Was it illness? Was it a congenital heart defect? Something genetic? We will never know.

Louisa gave birth to their last child, Rinehart, on Oct. 12, 1848. He died on Jan. 14, 1849. She died on March 6, 1849 at age 29.

I can’t help but wonder if it was from a broken heart.

Judge Carleton remarried to widow Mary Jane Young on Oct. 4, 1849. They had three children together, Adda, Mary, and James-Anna. Adda lived to age 36, Mary to age 88, and James-Anna only 15 months.

Judge Carleton died on Oct. 3, 1853 at age 43.

James-Anna, the last child born to Judge Carleton and his second wife, died on June 5, 1855. She has her own plate at the foot of the marker.

Two other white bronze plates can also be found at the base.

The final death noted on this monument is for the father of Judge Carleton’s second wife, Mary, the Rev. Alcinous Young, who died on March 30, 1876. His wife, Mary’s mother (Mary Young), shares the panel with him. She died on Oct. 8, 1856.

This white bronze marker must have been purchased after Rev. Young’s death in 1876. I don’t know who planned what it would say and whose names would be included. My guess is that it was Judge Carleton’s widow, Mary. She died in 1899 at age 72 in Burlington, Iowa. Her obituary indicates she was probably buried in Oakland Cemetery but I found no marker for her there.

I have to think that the rest of the Carleton clan owes a great debt to the person who had this monument made because these children, however short their lives were, deserve to be remembered.

Civil War Governor

I promised last week that I’d fill you in with more information about Iowa governor Samuel Jordan Kirkwood.

Born in Maryland in 1813, Kirkwood taught school before moving to Mansfield, Ohio in 1835. In 1843, he was admitted to the bar and served as the area’s prosecuting attorney for four years. That same year, Kirkwood married Jane Clark, sister of Phoebe Ann Clark, and thus became the brother-in-law of Edward Lucas. He was the son of Iowa’s first territorial governor Robert Lucas and his second wife Friendly Ashley Sumner Lucas.

The couple moved from Ohio to Iowa in the 1850s and Samuel got into the milling business with his brother-in-law Ezekiel Clark.

Samuel was elected to the Iowa Senate, serving from 1856 to 1859. In 1860, he was elected governor of Iowa. That year, the John Brown raid on Harpers Ferry further inflamed the country over slavery, and Kirkwood sided with abolitionists. Barclay Coppock, a young man who was part of Brown’s raid, fled to Iowa. Kirkwood refused to accept extradition papers for him from Virginia, and allowed Coppock to escape.

During the Civil War, Kirkwood recruited enough volunteers to put together over 50 regiments of infantry and cavalry for the Union cause. He was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to be the minister to Denmark, but Kirkwood declined.

After leaving office in 1864, Kirkwood practiced law in Iowa City. In 1865-1867, he served the remainder of James Harlan’s term in the U.S. Senate, and served in the Senate again from 1877 to 1881. Between his separate terms as a Senator, he was again governor of Iowa from 1876 to 1877. He resigned as governor in 1877 to begin his second term as U.S. Senator.

In 1881, Kirkwood resigned his Senate seat to become Secretary of the Interior under President James Garfield until 1882. After unsuccessfully running for Congress in 1886, Kirkwood spent the rest of his life practicing law and serving as president of an Iowa City bank.

Samuel Kirkwood died in Iowa City on Sept. 1, 1894, at the age of 80. Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City, Coralville, and Cedar Rapids is named for him. Kirkwood Avenue in Iowa City, where Kirkwood and his wife, Jane, lived for much of his political career, is named for him, as is Kirkwood Elementary School, located in Coralville, Iowa.

The Kirkwoods had no children. Jane stayed in Iowa City after her husband passed away. She died at age 99 on April 28, 1921. She is buried with Samuel.

Large Rectangular Slabs

I encountered a number of large, rectangular slabs from the 1840s to the 1870s that look like they came from the same stone mason. I don’t know much about the individuals they represent, but I enjoyed the different fonts and motifs on them.

Oakland has 27 Stover memorials listed on FindaGrave.com. This pair is for father and son Joseph Stover (1782-1875) and John Stover (1830-1858). It’s possible that John died of typhoid. Their markers both feature weeping willow trees.

A native of Ohio, Samuel Shields married Jane M. Eaton in 1850. The couple moved to Iowa City in 1853. They had two children, Rocina (who died in 1860), and Wilbur (who died in 1952 at age 79).

Samuel died in 1858 at age 35. His marker features an open Bible. Jane outlived him by over 30 years, dying on Feb. 12, 1890 at age 63.

A native of New York, Jane Shepard married British immigrant Joseph James Moyle in 1854. The couple moved to Iowa where Joseph worked as a miller. The couple had three children together. The third, Jennie, was born on Sept. 16, 1860. Jane died less than a month later on Oct. 5, 1960. Her grave marker features a hand pointing upward to Heaven.

Joseph remarried twice after Jane passed away, adding four more children to his family. He died in 1888 at age 57 and is buried with his third wife, Ida, in Fairview Cemetery in Lenox, Iowa.

End of the Road

I flew back to Atlanta a few days later, savoring the memories of our Iowa road trip. But I was ready to explore some cemeteries closer to home that I’d been wanting to visit. I’ll be sharing those with you in the next few weeks.