Boaz Cemetery TALES THE TOMBSTONES TELL

Tales The Tombstones Tell - Republican Observer - July 12, 1956

Rightly speaking there are three cemeteries at Boaz. The village has a population of less than 200 and the three cemeteries total a population of close to that mark. The village cemetery is situated on the slop of a hill just at the east side of town and below it is the Catholic cemetery {Saint Mathews} and up on a hillside above the Boaz school house is the Core cemetery, private burying ground.

          The Boaz Cemetery

In the village cemetery are buried many of those people who helped make the village and those folks whose homes were in the area adjoining. Monuments with these familiar names stand on the hillside: Hanold, Staum, Berger, Berry, Bahr, Outland and Barnes.

    The monument of Ensley Wallace is there with others that look down upon the village. His tombstone says:
                Ensley Wallace
        Corporal Co. B 25th Wis. Vol. Inf.
              Buried at Paducah, Ky.
                  1834-1862

    According to the government army records Mr. Wallace enlisted from the town of Richwood on August 9, 1862, and he died less than a year later of disease at Paducah: Co. B, 25th regiment contained many Richland county men, in fact less than a dozen members of this company came from outside of Richland county. Wm. H. Joslin was a captain of the company and Wm. H. Bennett, for whom the local GAR post took its name, was also a captain, along with W. C S. Barron. We notice from the official roster that in addition to Ensley Wallace there were three others, Stephen J., Daniel and Hiram Wallace, all from the town of Richwood and all died of disease while in service. Stephen died at Helena, Ark., August 20, 1863; Daniel at Snyder's Bluff, Miss., on July 11, 1863, and Hiram on November 14, 1863, at Memphis, Tenn. The four men, all from the town of Richwood, may have been brothers, or at least, bore close relationship. On the stone for Ensley Wallace is a line for his wife Margaret, who was born in 1837 and died in 1917.

    On a stone is carved a verse for a little girl. Queen, daughter of J. and A. Noble, who died November 25, 1870, aged seven months. It reads: "Suffer little children to come unto Me for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Not far from her grave is one of Zelpha Andrus, who passed on December 30, 1870, aged 82 years and seven months. Thus the very young and the aged sleep on the hillside; one seven months of age and the other over 82 years, they both died in 1870. The little girl would now be 85 years old if she had lived. Time marches on.

    On one of the stones bears the name of John A. Evans, who died in 1924 at the age of 74. Mr. Evans was a veteran freight hauler between Richland Center and Boaz. He operated his horse drawn vehicle for years and years. He knew muddy roads, when mud was "hub deep' on that stretch of highway leading from the Boaz corner into the village. In fact that stretch of highway has not been out of the mud for very many years at that. John was a faithful freight operator and some days had to make two round trips over the nine mile distance between the two points, a total for those days of 36 miles. Besides hauling freight and express Mr. Evans would run errands for the village folks. His passing following an operation at Madison, was deeply mourned by many.

    One of the early burial in the village cemetery was the body of Mrs. Hulda Cross, who died Aril 17, 1868, at the age of 40 years. Charles Schumacher, aged three years, three months and 26 days, died on August 1, 1863.

     Boaz, as a village, was platted in 1857-58 by R. and J. T. Barnes and it was no doubt a few years later that the first burial was made in the cemetery.

S.F.

                                                   Go Back to This Cemetery's Main Page