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Genealogical society restores Hecla Cemetery
by Deborah K. Frontiera
On June 29, the Houghton-Keweenaw Genealogical Society (HKGS) took a major step in its project to restore the old Hecla Cemetery when society president Avis West turned over the cemetery deed to Calumet Township. A recent grant for $3,000 from the Keweenaw National Historical Park will help the restoration project even more.
HKGS is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support and improve ancestral research projects by its members and to guide nonmembers with their family research in the Houghton and Keweenaw county area. It also encourages a broader understanding and appreciation for genealogical research.
For example, another recent project was developing a newspaper index of obituaries and death notices from Copper Country newspapers from 1862 through 1907 and putting that index on a CD. The next CD is planned to index newspapers from 1908-1914. Having an index makes it much easier for people to locate information. It saves time scanning hundreds of pages at random looking for a single name.
The society’s interest in the cemetery goes back about five years to when members began indexing headstones so people could use these records to fill in gaps in family histories. As part of that work, volunteer members mapped the area with reference lines, found cemetery survey markers and filed the information they gathered at township offices so it would be available to the public.
This was not an easy task since the cemetery was abandoned many years ago. Its grounds are littered with fallen trees and branches. Young trees have sprouted along with vines, ferns and other ground vegetation that covered many markers completely. Even the Hecla Cemetery’s general location may be unknown to many people, hidden as it is on the southwest edge of Laurium, its signs long gone.
Until recently, the only visitors to the cemetery were young people who snuck in to have late-night parties or vandalize what few stones still are easily seen.
Many stones have been damaged with tools and spray paint. Some areas are full of trash and construction debris. Emerald Ash Borers may have invaded some of the larger trees, necessitating their removal. But native periwinkle has protected many other stones.
Volunteers have begun the hard work of staking out and clearing paths of debris and dead wood, stacking that dead wood to be chipped into mulch, collecting trash and so much more. They are working in conjunction with Michigan Technological University forestry experts in deciding which trees should be removed and how, and which native plants to encourage.
Originally, the cemetery was established by the Calumet Mining Company. It was continued by Calumet and Hecla (C&H) Mining Company. No records have yet been found as to who purchased the many lots.
Expenses for upkeep of the cemetery continued in C&H cash records until 1900, when C&H leased it to Sacred Heart Church. The church paid $1 per year for the lease until 1931, after which it chose not to renew the lease and the cemetery continued to decline. In 1980, C&H actually platted the land and began selling off lots bordering the cemetery for private use.
While it is sad to think that for some people, all memory of their lives boils down to dates of birth and death (and sometimes an epitaph) etched into a stone marking their resting places, cemeteries tell important stories from our past. These dates often can be matched with newspaper articles and obituaries, which provide other clues to the lives of our ancestors.
The earliest burial found so far was for John O’Brian in 1858, but the majority of burials occurred between the 1880s and the early 1900s before Lakeview Cemetery was opened. The last burial recorded, that of Theresa Marston, was in 1935. Society members have documented more than 600 burials that they found referenced in local publications and have found 111 names on markers in the cemetery so far. They do not know, and may never know, exactly how many burials took place there, how many markers have been buried, disappeared due to vandals, or were moved to Lakeview Cemetery when it became the primary cemetery for the area.
Other stories from the Hecla cemetery document mining accidents: the death of a fourteen-year-old boy who had been working in the Osceola Mine for only two weeks before his young life was snuffed out on December 20, 1889; or the tragedy at South Hecla on May 23, 1890, which resulted in four men being buried together with one headstone to their memory.
Then there are the stories that members of the society find make it all worth the effort. In December 2007, a man named W.O. Marion arrived in the Copper Country searching for his Irish ancestors. He had traced them from Ireland to Boston and then to the Copper Country, and sought to fill the gaps and verify the few parts of the story handed down to him—seemingly long lists of tragic deaths of children shortly after birth or during their teens.
He didn’t have many hours to spend at the Michigan Tech archives skimming through hundreds of pages of newspapers—where death notices are rarely organized and often consist of tiny print wedged between advertisements—and soon became frustrated.
By pure chance—or perhaps grace—Peg Niedholdt, who had been working at cataloging the Hecla Cemetery records for some time for the society, also was at the archives that day. An archive assistant pointed out Niedholdt to Marion with the words, “Who knows? You might get lucky.”
The Luck of the Irish prevailed that day. Peg had just finished cataloging the very name Mr. Marion needed. He would later describe it this way: “I had gone from utter microfilm futility to a genealogical grand slam—all in a matter of minutes.” Marion’s gratitude continued when Niedholdt offered to take him to the cemetery to see the grave site—“though it’s not much of a cemetery...the place has been in ruins for decades,” she told him. Marion would never have found it without Peg Niedholdt and Houghton Keweenaw County Genealogical Society’s help.
Society members hope this will be one of many good stories to come from their dedication to projects such as indexing newspapers, restoring the Hecla Cemetery and other society projects that surely will follow.
Records have been found of attempts to clean and restore the cemetery in 1910, and again in 1929. The last attempt was organized by Sacred Heart Church in 1958, as part of the parish’s centennial celebration. Not one of the previous restoration efforts has lasted. HKGS hopes to change that.
The society now has had the opportunity to purchase the Hecla Cemetery. Its main goal to take ownership of the land and then donate it to Calumet Township has become reality. The society will continue to hold a conservation easement to ensure that the cemetery will remain an historic area in perpetuity as part of the sale agreement.
The society will take leadership in cemetery management and continue to document headstones and work with the community to develop a restoration plan, do fundraising and seek grants for improvements and maintenance. It plans to erect a sign and restrict access to cemetery footpaths, blocking motorized traffic into the cemetery grounds. There are plans to erect a fence along the cemetery border, separating it from private homes around its perimeter.
Interested members of the society met at Cyberia Café in Houghton in May 2010, one week after yet another evening of hauling dead brush to piles along paths, to discuss the next steps they needed to take.
The list of problems to be tackled was long: developing a list of guidelines for groups of hoped-for volunteers to help with restoration (the State of Michigan has many laws governing what can and can’t be done in cemeteries) deciding the best use of the $3,000 grant from Keweenaw National Historical Park; “to chip, or not to chip” the collected dead wood (and to find out for certain if the Emerald Ash Borer might spread further if mulch from those dead trees were used in the cemetery) and how to get the brush to a central location; what kind of border fence to erect; what kind of affordable sign might be approved by Calumet Township (which has very specific requirements for signs); and reaching out to more members and other community groups.
Guidelines for volunteers are crucial because using the wrong herbicide on unwanted plants may damage good plants nearby. Headstones can be further damaged if the wrong process is used to restore them.
The group has decided to set aside the first and third Mondays of each month from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. for continued work in the cemetery. The members urge potential volunteers and groups to contact them before entering the cemetery to help, and stress never going alone.
Anyone visiting at other times should stay on the paths and not disturb anything. For details, or to help with the project physically or financially, call Niedholdt at 337-2380 or e-mail pegnied@charter.net
—Deborah K. Frontiera
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