Bill and Diana Sowers
, Lincoln County CoordinatorsTracee Hamilton, Lincoln County Coordinator
It will probably be remembered that several months ago there appeared an article in the Sentinel-Republican in reference to the tragic death of a pioneer citizen by drowning in the Saline river west of town. The fact that the man was a Civil War veteran and that the grave in which he was interned had been neglected, caused quite a bit of comment at the time.
Sunday afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. George Moss and Mr. and Mrs. Bill Headley drove out to the Thorval Damker home, and in company with Thorval, made an effort to locate the grave. When Thorval was a youngester attending the old North Ireland school, he passed that way many times. As he recalls there were five of six graves on the grassy knoll where the Civil War veterans were buried, but the ravages of time, erosion and dust storms have completely oblitered all signs of the burial ground.
The object of locating the grave was to install one of the G.A. R. or Civil War markers which are placed at the head of Civil War veterans graves in cemeteries throughout the country. While the exact location of the grave could not be ascertained, the marker was placed at a point which Thorval remembered to the best of his recollection.
There is still a head stone near the location but it has been moved on several occasions. The inscription on the stone reveals that the man's name was J.C. Simmons and gave the date of his death as July 28, 1878, at the age of 45 years, but no reference as to his army record.
Inquiries among pioneer residents elicit little information about the Simmons family, except that Thorval's father was a close friend of Mr. Simmons and related the story of his tragic death to his family. When it came to the burial of Simmons it was found that he had no clothes suitable and Thorval's father supplied the only suit of clothes he had for the occasion. A suit of clothes was not a very expensive item in those days in relation to present prices, but Thorval recalls that his father said that it took him seven or eight years to be able to secure another suit. To the early settlers money was a scarce commodity, and a suit of clothes that cost from ten to twelve dollars was a real luxury.