Even a Cemetery has history . . .
​Winters on the Illinois Prairie are always long, dark and can be brutally cold. The winter of 1846 was particularly hard for a group of weakened immigrants who had just traveled thousands of miles to reach their new home.
Makeshift shelters consisting of tents, log huts, and earthen dugouts were erected shortly before the first snows arrived. They were generally inadequate, damp and overcrowded. These conditions provided an ideal breeding ground for respiratory illnesses. Their food provisions were also inadequate, very basic and in limited supply. To make matters worse, the system became totally overloaded when several additional groups of unplanned settlers arrived. Food rationing was instituted and malnutrition set in. Death ran rampant.
Mass graves became the final resting place for several hundred immigrants at various unmarked locations in the village. An additional 50 settlers were buried west of town at the Red Oak Grove outpost site. Burial information for the first winter on the prairie has never been found.
When winter ended, the spring sun and prairie flowers signaled better times ahead. Life went on and the hardy settlers planted crops, started construction of new buildings, and began the manufacture of saleable products. Good times had finally arrived, and the dream of Utopia was finally coming true, though it remained difficult to get any certain idea of conditions at Bishop Hill during the early years.
The disparaging accounts found in many letters are in poor agreement with interviews held with surviving colonists. Philip Stonberg, himself a son of Bishop Hill, stated in “The Story of Bishop Hill” (1905), that conditions were hard and that many died no one can deny. “We were certainly poor at first,” said Erik Aline, who reported that one of his first tasks was digging graves at Red Oak. Erik Aline wrote: “I remember when Norwegians came to Bishop Hill with the cholera in 1849. They had to move into a new building that was not quite finished; it was used later as a weaving mill. They hung up their clothes, which stank. Some were afraid of them, but Dr. Foster said we need not be afraid, for he could cure the cholera.
Time showed how wrong he was.”
​Communal living provided an ideal environment for the highly communicable disease and once again death ran rampant. In many cases the end was swift; people would be well at breakfast but gone by sundown. People tried to escape. The spiritual leader, Erik Jansson, even moved his family to the Colony fishing camp at Rock Island, to no avail. His wife and two children died there. In a vain attempt to outdistance the scourge, several other members fled to the Colony farming outpost called LaGrange (near Orion) where about 70 perished. Every morning in Bishop Hill, handcarts and wagons hauled bodies up the muddy road to a knoll on the east edge of town. Again, most were placed in mass graves without coffins, without markers, sometimes without services and in most cases without records. When the plague had finally run its course, over 150 members were gone.
On May 13, 1850, tragedy struck again. The colony founder and leader was shot and murdered at the courtyard in Cambridge, Illinois by John Root. Jansson's close followers expected him to return to his flock by divine intercession. When this did not happen, Erik Jansson was laid to rest in Lot 892 (old lot 5) of the Bishop Hill cemetery. A few words in Swedish and English tell of his life's work: "Erik Jansson, Founder of the town of Bishop Hill, born in Biskops Kulla, Sweden, December 19, 1818; murdered May 13, 1850." Eric's followers erected a marble memorial but after 160 years of weather erosion it became illegible so to mark the burial site the Bishop Hill Old Settlers provided a new bronze plaque.
By 1900, the original cemetery was being outgrown so Swan Swanson sold the Village a parcel of land on the north end of the original cemetery. During the ensuing years many settlers prospered and erected magnificent markers with their family names proudly emboldened in granite. However, there was another group that lived meager lives and many died with few resources. They were laid to rest in an area on the northeast side of the Cemetery in tiers of unmarked graves. In later years this area was commonly referred to as “Potter’s Field” and was available to anyone who needed a final resting place.
In the 1920’s a new addition was added on the south end of the original cemetery and in 2009 the Bishop Hill Old Settlers’ Association erected a large field stone and bronze plaque to remember and honor the Potters Field residents. Today the Cemetery is owned and maintained by the town government. The village board hosts a cemetery cleanup day each spring. A small perpetual fund exists but does not provide adequate funds to support cemetery maintenance, therefore the town maintains the Cemetery from its general fund. Plot sales and burials are handled by the village clerk. The Bishop Hill Old Settlers Association has assisted the village board by providing funding for restoration, repair and straightening of old markers and the creation of a Cemetery Record Book (for sale on BHOS website or via link below). More recently, the village board applied for and received a grant through the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation which has allowed the village to remove sod, add gravel, straighten and backfill stones, replace a culvert and erect a monument for the many souls who lay in unmarked graves but contributed so much to make this Swedish community what it is today.
Tack så mycket!
Organizations Supporting Bishop Hill
The ownership and restoration of (most) of the B.H. historic buildings and the events held
April thru December of each year exist because of the following organizations and entities.
We encourage and thank you for your support!!
Bishop Hill Old Settlers Association
https://www.bholdsettlers.org/
Illinois Historic Preservation & Department of Natural Resources
https://dnrhistoric.illinois.gov/
Bishop Hill Arts Council
https://www.bholdsettlers.org/
