Monday. October 8. 1979
3
Pioneer Cemetery ages gracefully holds century of Lawrence history
University Daily Kansan
By BOB PITTMAN
Staff Reporter
Pioneer Cemetery is an island of history on West Campus. Enclosed by a thorny hedge and a wood and concrete fence, the cemetery contains about 85 of Lawrence's earliest residents.
Although the residence halls of Dairy City are only a few hundred yards to the east, and highway moors drift up the incline from nearby Iowa Street. The cemetery has
Rain, wind and snow have polished the marble tombstones to the color of bleached bones but inscriptions on the stone still remain in the boxes of the dead through weathered script.
"George W. Coat aged 28 yrs, killed in the Massacre at Lawrence Aug. 21, 1863," reads one marble stone.
"Louis H. Swan killed in the Lawrence raid, Aug 21, 1863 aged 31 and three days," reads another tombstone, its script covered with moss and weather stains.
The stones remain as a grim reminder of the raid by William Quantum that killed about 149 Lawrence residents and filled the small cemetery.
ONLY ABOUT $s$ of the victims of the raid remain in the cemetery, however, according to Douglas County Historical Society records.
When the city purchased 40 acres east of Lawrence, which eventually would become Oak Hill cemetery, the majority of the property moved and reinforced in the city.
Funeral processes had traveled to the then isolated site for nearly 20 years when the purchase of the new land in 1872 ended Pioneer life as the city cemetery.
According to historical society records, Pioneer Cemetery was established soon after the settlement of Lawrence. Early
burials apparently were without any system and no records were kept.
A BLACKENED MARLE stone on the cemetery's west edge that reads, "Cornelius Campbell died April 22, 1835," is believed to be the oldest marker at Pineville.
The records, however, state that earlier bodies may have been interred without markers. This possibility is attested to by the letters of accusations that punctuate the cemetery's grass.
Eighteen members of a Civil War unit who died of a fever epidemic in their camp near Lawrence lie in the middle of the plot of land.
Their small, uniform tombstones, each bear a military shield and are placed with military precision in straight rows.
Mary of the other markers are those of children who died during scarlet fever and diphtheria epidemics according to historical society records.
"Born here to sweetly ripen and then bear fruit beyond the tomb," reads the tomb-bone of a child of four.
THE SITE became a gathering spot for local youths around the turn of the century and it became overgrown with prairie grass and weeds.
"Darling rest in peace," reads another stone, its inner half roughly broken off.
The cemetery was cleaned up in 1928, during the term of Mayer Robert Rankin. A fence and turntable were erected, and new headstones were placed; it received the name Pioneer Cemetery.
It formerly was called Oread Cemetery.
During the 1808s, however, the cemetery was the scene of "drinking and carousing parties," and vandalism, according to historical social accounts.
One example of vandalism was when the Peak family monument was taken from the
cemetery and placed on the lawn of a University sorority house.
Elmer E. Brown, member of the special committee on Pioneer Cemetery, wrote, "I am so happy to see again be a black loaquet thicket as it once was when Mr. Gunnup has put his goal. Today it is."
In 1938, the Lawrence Democrat publish- 'The cattle were being pured on the spot,' and Committee on Parks and Cemeteries should give this halloween to Kansas' Kansas City "story."
ANOTHER CLEANUP followed. In 1953, the university transferred the responsibility for University's Endowment Association, stipulating that the University must maintain the ground and use it for
The land can now be used for the burial of any KU alumnus or faculty member who requests burial there.
Modern burial markers, including that of Elmer McColum, KU alumens and scientist, whose ashes were brought to the cemetery in 1875, would together on the eastern side of the cemetery.
The old tombstones remain, many of them fallen from their original upright positions, lying flat against the ground, partially covered by the grass.
Verses chisled on the surfaces of the stones stand out starkly in the sunlight.
"Remember friends as you pass by, as you are so once was I, as I am now soon you will be prepare for death and follow me," is written on the bottom of James Baldwin's marker.
The beginning of an inscription on W. Matthew's tombstone has been obliterated by the weather. But the final lines remain. "I shall rise and I hope to meet you in the skies."
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Editor tells of press limitations
By JENNIFER HOLT Staff Reporter
Staff Renorter
Kansas newspaper readers should be told their fundamental freedoms are at stake when the freedom to report news in Kansas is more limited than in almost any other state in the union. W. Davis Merritt and Larry Frost, W. Wright, Ewaltia Eagle and Beacon, said Saturday.
"The saffron of any county can arrest a rival public official, hold him without notice for two days on a phone case, then inform him, and have the record forever sealed," he said.
Merritt spark to Kansas newspaper editors and publishers at the annual Kansas Editors Day at the Kansas Union, Williams at William Allen White School of Journalism.
He urged his fellow editors to change the state's closed meeting law that allows public meetings to function in secrecy, and to allow the record of court proceedings and arrests.
"Those of us in this room have let it go," she said. "We have stocked pocketbooks and mind maps at the courts and legislatures and local bureaucats have slammed closed their doors."
Tom Eblem, this year's Gannett professional-in-residence at the School of Journalism, delivered the Editors Day Editors' Editors' New Contract with Readers."
During the program, Drew McLaughlin Sr., who was the long-time editor of the Miami Republican, became the 60th editor of The Times. He also edited *Eighty*'s *Election*'s Hall of Fame. Kansas editors
"any district attorney in Kansas can arrest any person for any reason, detain him or her incognito on any charge, and record the life forever sealed," he said.
annually select Hall of Fame members by secret ballot.
COUNTY SHERIFFS also have the power to bypass public records, Merritt said.
MLAUGHIL, who was 84 when he died in 1967, was a member of the Kansas Board of Regents for 24 years. He was editor and owner of the Haibara Herald from 1908 to 1914, and from 1919 to 1919 was editor and editor of the Hawaiwa Daily World.
In his speech, Merritt warned that if freedom of media access to court records is violated, the state will Kansans "will have played a key role in making the state the least free, the least free."
"Any judge in Kansas can dismiss any charge he chooses and the record of the event and the reason for dismissal is locked away forever."
McLaughlin was born in Hiawatha on Christmas Day, 1882. He later was secretary of the Republican party state legislature and then to the national Republican convention in Kansas City, Mo. He was president of the Kansas Press Association in 1923, was a member of the Paula Board of Education from 1924 until his death of the Republican party in Miami County.
HE SAID NEWPAPER editors and publishers must balance the needs of traditional readers with the needs and challenges longer reader that is slowly declining.
In addition to speakers and the Hall of Fame tribute, a tribute to Oscar S. Stauffer, chairman of Stauffer Communications, is given by John L. Bassett, a long-time journalism journalist. Stauffer recently made a $1 million gift to the KU journalism program.