Greenwood Cemetery

 Greenwood Cemetery

 The prototyp to fight in the area around Town were the Indigence Americans of the Confederacy. Before any one appointed here the lands of area Algonquian were white in prairie locoweed for miles around. The settlers shapely villages, hunted in the forests, and fished in the rivers. Nevertheless none of these villages were stacked on the situation of the subsequent city of Decatur. Instead the area was victimized as a in human priming. According to Homegrown Americans beliefs, their entombment settings were chosen very carefully and the locations desirable were those that were more closely adjunct to the grouping beyond. They felt that this would aid in the knowledge of the psyche accomplishment to the piazza that lay

Metropolis would someday table was virtuous such an area.

It is believed that one of the sites victimized by the Someone Americans as a in humation aspect was the austral voice of the ongoing Greenwood Site. There are a number of gettable started writer and impressions that convey a size of burials that acquire taken expanse and individual remained unrecorded.

The premier lodging built in this expanse was a log cabin stacked in 1820 by William Landscapist. It was set upright southeastward of the Sangamon River. Downing remained in the region until 1824 and then oversubscribed his sanctuary and conception to the Protect bloodline. Shortly after Landscaper arrived in the expanse there came the Filmmaker fellowship and individual else settlers creating two micro settlements. Brio in those life was bad and anything from the brave to wellness could contact out an intact kinsfolk. There were no realistic sepulture custom, no undertakers and no embalming.

There was an incident that occurred before the local residents began using the burial grounds. It was an incident involving cold-blooded murder and may be one of the things that contributed to the haunting of Greenwood. Late historian Roy V. Terneus called the incident the "Moonshiners and the Indians". It is thought to have occurred in the late 1820s, possibly 1828. One day in the spring of that year a small group of settlers were camped near the Sangamon River, just south of the present day cemetery. The men had constructed a liquor still and were making alcohol from corn for "moonshine". The men were unaware of a group of Native Americans that was passing by. For some reason the settlers decided to pursue the Indians through the woods. The Indians were chased through the woods and they ran up a hill in the direction of the burying grounds. Before they could make it to the top the settlers opened fire and the Indians were cut down on the side of the hill. Not wanting to provoke revenge from other Indians the men decided to conceal the bodies in a shallow ravine on the side of the hill where they fell. The bodies were dragged into the ditch and a number of stones were heaped over them. This makeshift grave can still be seen on the side of the hill in the southwestern part of the cemetery.

Burials continued to be carried out at the Common Burial Grounds until at least 1838. It is also believed that local abolitionists used the cemetery as a secret burial place for escaped slaves. According to local lore, a number of unmarked graves began appearing and burials were carried out under the cover of darkness. Around 1840 a few records began to appear that chronicled burials in Greenwood Cemetery. On March 3, 1857 the newly established Greenwood Cemetery Association was organized and the cemetery was incorporated into the city of Decatur. In those days burial plots were sold for $10 each. By 1900 Greenwood Cemetery was widely accepted as the most fashionable place to be buried. Greenwood had also become a place for local people to go on Sunday afternoons. The park-like setting, rolling hills and towering oak trees made the cemetery a frequent spot for picnic lunches and casual strolls. Greenwood was well maintained by a crew of 8 men. It had become known as the "Beautiful City of the Dead".

Things began to change in the middle of the 1920s. The association had run out of money and by 1926 only two men were taking care of the grounds. It only seemed logical that the burial ground should be reverted back to nature and the association would salvage what it could from this disastrous financial situation. The association also claimed that there was no more room to expand and so there was no more land upon which to sell plots. Around this time many cemeteries along the east coast had started a program called "Perpetual Care". This meant that burial plots could be sold at a much higher price with the stipulation that they would always be cared for. This gave the possibility of an answer to the current money problems. The Perpetual Care campaign was stated in 1928 along with a plea for contributions. By 1929 there were 116 Perpetual Care lots in Greenwood. However this solved only part of the problem and it wasn’t long before a large portion of the cemetery began to resemble a forgotten bone yard with overgrown grass, rampant weeds and brush, fallen branches and tipped and broken gravestones.

In the 1940s tales of wandering spirits and glowing apparitions continued to thrive while decay and decline were ever looming over Greenwood and as 1950 rolled in the cemetery was in ruins. Only the Perpetual Care lots resembled what the cemetery had once looked like. In 1957 at the annual Decatur town meeting it was decided that the ownership and operation of the graveyard would revert to the city and so Greenwood survived.