Mayfield Cemetery TALES THE TOMBSTONES TELL

Tales The Tombstones Tell - Republican Observer - January 26, 1956

           A Visit to Four Cemeteries

    Pine River, Bovee, Ash Creek and Mayfield are the names of four cemeteries along county trunk O in the towns of Richland and Orion all within a distance of four miles. In these four burying grounds rest many of the early settlers of the neighborhood.

              Mayfield Cemetery

    Down the highway a mile or so you take a right turn on a county road to another country cemetery. This one takes its name from the Mayfield family, early settlers. David Mayfield and wife located in Orion township June 20, 1845, and Green Mayfield, a brother, in 1846, though he may have come with his brother in 1845. He served in the Black Hawk War, enlisting when 14 years of age. He also served in the Civil War. His son, Elijah, is buried in the cemetery, and the last burial there up-to-date was a grandson, Asa.

    On a stone in the cemetery is engraved: "We will meet you and oh what shouting there will be."

    George Drake, who for years ran a feed store in the city, is buried there. Mr. Drake, we noticed would have been 100 years old in 1955.

    On a marker not far from the Mayfield lot was this bit of verse:

             "Although he sleeps, his memory doth live,
        And cheering comfort to his mourners give.
        He followed virtue as his truest guide,
        Lived as a Christian, and as a Christian died."

    Some of the stones in the Mayfield cemetery are engraved in German. These are for members of the Pauls family.

    Like some of the other county cemeteries burials are less numerous than they were years ago and there will come a time when these little burial plots will be no longer used but around them will still linger memories of the long, long ago.

S. F.

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