Document text
Missouri Flat tales Chuck Lewman works Friday to clean up Missouri Flat Cemetery off North Applegate Road. Mail Tribune / Jamie Lusch Wednesday Oct 12, 2016 at 4:31 PM Oct 12, 2016 at 5:49 PM Tony Boom for the Mail Tribune APPLEGATE — Missouri Flat Cemetery, more than 150 years old, will be highlighted in a two-hour walking tour put on by the cemetery association and Southern Oregon Historical Society. The free event, which will be narrated by Chuck Lewman, president of the association, will begin at 11 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 16. The burial of Breckenridge Wooldridge in 1864 marked the beginning of the cemetery. Wooldridge, who died when he was kicked in the head by a horse, was buried on land owned by William Miller. More burials followed, and the site became the community’s cemetery. “Like most of the pioneer cemeteries, it was run by volunteers,” said Lewman. In 1922, the Jackson County Board of Commissioners approved legal status for an association. Lewman will tell tales of those buried there and highlight the site’s history. In 1876, Miller sold the land but excluded the cemetery site from the sale. The old cemetery, a strip about 300-by-100 feet along North Applegate Road, was added to later by William Eberhard, George Feldmaeir and Thomas Roberts, who all did quit claims on portions of their property. It gained its present thee-plus-acres size when Forrest Drake sold about an acre to the association in 1987. “We were almost full. Once that (new addition) is full, there is no other way to expand,” said Lewman. There are around 1,200 interments at the cemetery, which sees three to five burials per year, he said. Missouri Flat got its name from residents of that state who moved to the area in the late 1850s to escape the Kansas-Missouri Border War, which pitted pro- and anti-slavery proponents against each other in violent confrontations. “Southern Oregon was definitely pro-South,” said Lewman. “They sympathized strongly with the South from this area.” Lewman’s relative, Thomas Howard Lewman, is buried in the cemetery. He was in Sherman’s army during the Civil War and was wounded twice and captured twice. He served until the war ended. “The sucker didn’t know when to quit,” said Lewman. There’s also a Confederate, John Slagle, who served under Gen. Joe Shelby, buried in the cemetery. Veterans of the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II and Korea are buried in the cemetery, said Judy Hofmann, cemetery sexton. During the 1950s and 1960s, the cemetery association was largely inactive. Sometime during that period, cemetery records went missing, said Hofmann. The association reorganized in 1972. Hofmann has been sexton since 1994 and has been secretary, succeeding her mother. Her father was Forrest Drake. “There’s a family connection,” said Hofmann. “We all have somebody in the cemetery. It’s kind of passed down from generation to generation.” Records are less complete for the older portion of the cemetery. “It’s iffy mostly on one side because of the headstones disappearing and the wooden grave markers deteriorating,” said Hofmann. “Markers have been stolen, and memories are gone.” Darrell Stafford and his late wife, Margaret, were faithful in remapping much of the cemetery, said Hofmann. Darrell still continues the work. Applegate Lions Club provides extensive cleanup of the cemetery each spring, she added. In 2014, the site was recognized as a historic cemetery. That has allowed the group to apply for heritage grants from the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation, Lewman said. Missouri Flat Cemetery is located on North Applegate Road near its intersection with Northside Road, Kubli Road and Slagle Creek Road. Participants should meet at the main gate of the cemetery and wear good walking shoes. For more information, call Lewman at 541-601-3042. — Tony Boom is an Ashland freelance writer. Reach him at [email protected].