History of Wolf Creek Cemetery revealed at museum program

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Wolf Creek Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in Saline County and is second in size only to the Harrisburg City Cemetery.

Wolf Creek is 80 acres and Harrisburg's is 120 acres.

Jon Poore of Colonial Terrace Funeral Home provided information on the cemetery in a program called "Secrets of Wolf Creek Cemetery" Thursday to visitors of Eldorado's Old City Hall Museum.

The Wolf Creek area, just west of Eldorado, had the first blockhouse in that part of the county, but there is controversy over its location.

"Some say it was at the flagpole and some say it was a half mile west on the way to Raleigh," Poore said.

There was a good reason for a blockhouse there. The Kaskaskia Trail ran through the cemetery. John O'Dell, pastor of Wolf Creek Primitive Baptist Church that is adjacent to the cemetery, said he believes the trail was what is now the blacktopped road in the cemetery. Part of the original trail is evident as a depression on a hill near the cannon and flag pole.

Kaskaskia Trail was important as it led from Shawneetown on the Ohio River to the salt works of Equality and on to the Mississippi River at Kaskaskia, then capital of the Illinois Territory. Pioneers, many of whom settled in Saline County, used the trail. The blockhouse was a place to go for protection from aggressors.

The cemetery's founders obtained the land Jan. 21, 1816, from Coleman Brown. The oldest recorded grave in the cemetery is for Thomas Brown who was buried in 1830.

The cemetery holds the remains of Eldorado's founding fathers with names such as Choisser, Henderson, Brown, Bramlet, Elder, Reed and Burnett.

There are more than 6,000 marked graves on record and more than 5,000 monuments.

In 1991 someone's Doberman pinscher was buried with a monument. In 1983, 25 feet from the back of the church, Dixie, the 59-year-old parrot of Ralph and Doris Mathias was buried in the cemetery with a monument.

Poore said on average 46 people a year a buried in the cemetery.

Currently there are about 200 lots available in the cemetery with eight graves per lot. Lots are $600 each. Half lots of four graves are $400. Lots are sold at Eldorado City Hall.

-- DeNeal receives e-mail at bdeneal@yourclearwave.com.

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