You may be wondering where did cleaning gravesites come from. Sit down and enjoy the beginning and maybe be inspired to do a little cleaning of your own. Let me start by telling anyone not familiar with Northern Nevada (and no Nevada is not just Las Vegas, which is approximately 7 hours’ drive time from Carlin) the summers are hot in the range of 100 degrees and dry (when we do get drain it just makes the ground mad) and very dusty. The winters are well below freezing and with a wind chill it is common to be in the minus degree range. Oh, one more thing for those that live in Denver and boost of being a mile above sea level, surprise so are we. Enough of that on with the story.
My wife (Leslie) and I were out in the High Desert just enjoying the freedom of open spaces, when I asked her if she had ever been to “Maiden’s Grave” (you may be asking why go to a gravesite, well she does like history). Her response was “no”, so off we went. Maiden’s Grave is about 6 miles south of I-80 and 2 miles east of Beowawe (this little town’s name comes from a Paiute Indian name meaning “gate” and when you look at the way the mountains come together it makes perfect sense, it truly is a gate to the valley beyond). OK, back to the story, Maiden’s Grave is so named out of honoring Lucinda Duncan. The original gravesite was right in the middle of the realignment of the Southern Pacific Railroad near Gravely Ford, so it was moved to a bluff overlooking the railroad and the Humboldt River. When she was moved by the railroad, she was thought to be a young woman, a maiden, however she was no maiden. The records are that she died of a heart attack on August 15th, 1863, being seventy (70) years of age and traveling along the California Trail with her family from Richmond, Missouri to the gold fields of California where her husband passed away in 1849 (she remained a widow for the remainder of her life) and then heading back along the California Trail to her family which had settled in the area where she passed away. Just imagine for a moment what this woman endured not once but twice traveling the trail; disease, such as Cholera, wagon accidents, river crossings, Indian raids, the mountain ranges and the waterless Forty Mile Desert, no thank you. However, that was who she was and came to be known to many as the “mother of the wagon train”.
Seeing the cemetery of this notable person of history and the numerous grave markers of veterans, my wife and I started to formulate a plan to clean it up. So, knowing this was not going to be a small task, I took the idea to the Post we belong to in Carlin, NV (WW Manning Post 32 of the American Legion). Talking to the other members I discovered that there was another cemetery being in Palisade, NV and that one also had veterans grave markers there, with one being a Civil War Veteran (Francis A Parry). Being instilled at a young age the importance of history by my father and the value of preserving all of our history this touch my heart that an individual that fought in the Civil War had a final resting place that was being neglected. OK enough of that back to Francis Parry, he was born in Wales in 1837. He found his way to America and enlisted into the Union forces on April 17th, 1861, as a private being assigned to Company B, 82nd New York Infantry. He was wounded in the Battle of Antietam in Maryland, 17th September 1862. Promoted to Corporal on 31st October 1862. He mustered out of service on 14th June 1864. It is a mystery on how he came to Palisade, Nevada.
Post 32 formulated a plan to tackle Palisade Cemetry and then continue with Maiden’s Grave Cemetry, and thus was born the idea of cleaning up cemeteries to honor our veterans and help in our small way to preserve the memories of those that blazed the trail for us to follow.
I won’t go through the whole process of what it takes to get the permission to do work at cemeteries or other historical sites and markers. If you are interested in learning more about the process, please email at [email protected] and also cc [email protected]