Bill and Diana Sowers
, Lincoln County CoordinatorsTracee Hamilton, Lincoln County Coordinator
Some three or four years ago the Sentinel-Republican carried a story on the tragic death of an early day citizen, who was drowned in the flooded Saline river near Vesper while endeavoring to ford the stream on horseback. The early resident in question was a Civil War veteran, and his body was buried in a grave a few miles west of Lincoln. The grave had become neglected all these years until Walter Damker interested himself in the incident and thought some action should be taken to make some suitable remembrance of one of the country's war dead. However, one of the markers used in the cemetery to designate the last resting place of an old soldier, was secured and was placed at the grave soon after the story appeared.
A representative of the Kansas Veterans Commission was in Lincoln at the time the story appeared and became deeply interested in the narrative. In fact, he was to take the matter up with the proper authorities to look into the past army records to find where the old soldier had served in the Civil War. He evidently did as he had planned and the notation had been turned over to the Veterans' Commission where it had remained until Arthur Rose, a former Lincoln boy, who is now employed as an administrative assistant with the Veterans' Commission at Topeka, ran onto the information in the office and immediately got busy to trace down all the information he could find.
In a letter received last week from Arthur, he gives the following account of what he had learned from his research so far. The letter follows:
"In 1954 your paper carried an article on Walter Damker's attempts to identify Joshua Simmons, and cause his grave located west of Lincoln to be marked. After coming to [can't read', I took a few minutes to make some inquiries. The Kansas State Historical Society advised:
"The account of the drowning appears in the Saline Valley Register for July 31, 1878, but their is no biographic information given and his war record is not mentioned. His name was Joshua Simmons and he is listed in the 1875 census of Lincoln county. He was born in Ohio but came to Kansas from Iowa and could have served in either state.
"On May 6, 1958, we wrote to the Adjutant General's offices in Iowa and Ohio. Today, we received a certificate of (Civil War) service on Joshua Simmons from the state of Iowa. It reads: Age, 32 years; resident, Fourth Congressional District; nativity, Ohio; enlisted, 2 November 1864 in Company E, 13th Infantry, Iowa Volunteers; mustered, 2 November 1864; mustered out, 21 July 1865, Louisville, Kentucky.
"It is possible that additional evidence may be received from Ohio. An account of the drowning may have appeared in the home town paper. We also have received from the Kansas Adjutant General on a Joshua Simmons, nativity, Greene County, Ohio, who enlisted at Ft. Winchester, Kansas, in 1862 at the age of 18. There is no mention of the state of Iowa. It appears that the first mentioned might be the Joshua Simmons we are concerned with.
"If the situation is now the same as was described in the Sentinel-Republic in 1954, we will request the Veterans Administration to consider a re-burial in a National cemetery."
It might be interesting to note that there are three other graves at the same site, that of Mr. Simmons' wife and three children, according to a tombstone which still stands at the site of the graves.