Post Messenger Recorder -

By 1:30 p.m. on Memorial Day, it had already been raining for several hours and it looked like the rain might start up again at any minute. So this year's ceremony was moved to the York Town Hall. About 15 hardy individuals congregated to honor our departed veterans.

Tom Mitchell read the names of the veterans of four wars who are buried in Green's Prairie. Blackhawk War (1): James Biggs, Pvt, Captain William Hamilton's Co., WI Volunteers. War of 1812 (4): David Ash, Pvt, Capt. Ichabod's Nye's Co., Ohio Militia, Elisha Gorham, Sailor, Merchant Marines, New Haven, Connecticut, Robert Peebles, Pvt, Lt. Col., Joseph Willcocks Cavalry Rgt, NW Militia, and Nathan Sherman, Pvt, Capt, Seymour Kellogg's Co., NY Militia. Civil War (8): Amos Conkey, Pvt, Company I, 2nd WI Cavalry, Rosel Crowell, Pvt, Company I, 6th WI Infantry, William Sherman, Pvt, Company I, 2nd WI Cavalry, John W. Stewart, Pvt, Company G, 31st WI Infantry, Joel Walker, Pvt, Company E, 8th WI Infantry, and John Westcott, Serg, Company I, 46th WI Infantry. Two additional veterans who are buried elsewhere are honored on their parents tombstones: George B. Thomas, Pvt, Co. I, 5th WI Infantry (buried Fredericks, VA), Henry C. Gorham, Pvt, Co. I, 46th WI Infantry (buried Nashville, TN). It was noted that a new tombstone had been obtained from the US Department of Defense for Nathan Sherman, but that very rainy weather has so far prevented it from being installed.

This year's ceremony also feathered a presentation on the Stewart Family Cemetery where John S. Stewart is buried. John S. Stewart was the first settler in what would later become York Township, and the father of Civil War veteran John Waverly Stewart. John moved with his wife, Adoline, and their five children to Wiota in Lafayette County in the spring of 1837. The following year they moved to section 27 in York Township. John was an excellent hunter and an expert blacksmith. He made and sold the first metal moldboard plow in the area that could be used to turn the thick prairie sod. This was an almost impossible task for then existing wooden plows. In 1844, his wife Adoline died in childbirth and in 1847 his six-year-old daughter Adoline died. Both were buried on the family farm. John became deeply distressed. In the spring of 1850, John, his son George, and two Gabriel neighbors went by covered wagon to California following the gold rush. They arrived in the fall and spent the winter of 1850/51 near Sutters' Mill on the American River in El Dorado County. In the fall of 1851 they returned to Wisconsin. In 1853 John married Mrs. Huldah Brown. Together they had three children. John died in February of 1867, and is buried on the family farm. He was 61 years old. Huldah eventually moved to Lancaster County, Nebraska, to live with her son, Grant. She died there in June of 1886. A new publication on the John S. Stewart family should be available from David Green in the fall of 2019. The replacement family gravestone in York Township is best seen on the free website findagrave.com. Type in John S. Stewart, Green County, Wisconsin, USA, and only his family tombstone will be found.

Jeanne Ausmus donated a print of her line drawing of an annual burn at Green's Prairie Cemetery. After framing, the drawing will be hung in the Town Hall later this summer. Following the ceremony most attendees stayed to look at Jeanne's print and a number prairie related publications, pictures and maps provided by John Ochsner.