Surrounded by woods and farmland, the Mormon Road Cemetery holds less than a half dozen headstones but according to the Lee County Genealogical Society records, over 20 people rest in peace near Amboy. (Reporter photo by Jim Dresbach)
At one time inside the borders of Lee County, members of maligned 19th century religion made a life for themselves. They worshipped and existed near Rocky Ford, near Palestine Grove – and in and near Amboy, Ill. Mormons lived, toiled, worked and died on the local Illinois prairie, but nearly 160 years later, a religious group known for dwelling in Nauvoo, Ill., still has a concrete legacy in Lee County.
But that concrete legacy is literally crumbling and being hauled away to historical scrap heaps.
A plot of land known as the Mormon Cemetery rests a mile southeast of Amboy on Mormon Road, but according to county historians, many myths surround the graveyard, which today only holds a handful of headstones.
Myth number one is that the Mormon cemetery was established by the Utah Mormon Church and holds the remains of Church of Latter Day Saints followers, and myth number two tells of a wife of a famous church leader that is buried in the Amboy area plot.
According to the Amboy City history, the Mormons arrived in the area during the late 1830s and early 1840s. In 20 year’s time, events in Illinois planted a new destiny for the Lee County Mormons. The death of founder Joseph Smith and the question of a rightful successor led to a split from the main body by the Lee County Mormons. They became known as “Reorgs.”
“There were a number of groups who split off; one of them became the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ,” said Gordon Johnson, Special Projects Chairman at the Lee County Genealogical Society. “The Reorgs were in Amboy in the 1870s . When this cemetery was established it was done by the elders of the local branch (of Reorgs). They were not associated with what we know as the Mormon Church today.”
In 2009, many of the headstones are in disrepair. One historical source mentioned that many of the grave markers were made of wood and have long since rotted and disappeared. Through the latter half of the 20th century, the graveyard became a hangout for late night revelry, but former Amboy history teacher Craig Pfannkuche inspired his students to organize a cemetery clean up.
“It is important that we appreciate local history, and we are living in a part of history,” Pfannkuche said about Amboy’s Mormon period.
According to the LCGS in Dixon, 21 people have been accounted for in the graveyard, but no exact count may ever be known. In addition to never having a complete count of the departed who rest near Amboy, it may never be known whether one grave belongs to a wife of Brigham Young.
Though LDS founder Smith and his successor, Brigham Young, often visited Lee County – Smith's in-laws resided in Sublette – some experts believe it is a historical stretch to conclude that one of Young's spouses is buried at the Mormon Road cemetery.
“It is a myth,” Johnson said of the Brigham Young connection to the cemetery. “I don’t see how one of Smith’s or Young’s wife would be buried in that cemetery. Joe Smith had a number of wives. Timeline-wise, this just doesn’t sound right. Why in the world would Brigham Young have a wife buried in a cemetery created in the 1870s?
“So to have a wife of Brigham Young there would be very unlikely,” Johnson continued. “Sure, he could have married somebody out West, she could have gotten upset with the church and went back to Illinois and her family and died there, but that’s as speculative as saying a Brigham Young wife is buried there.”
Pfannkuche also finds the Brigham Young wife story hard to believe, but offered information that does link Young to the cemetery.
“It is a rumor,” Pfannkuche said of the Young wife burial. “But there are related family members buried there. Still, the records are not very clear.”
What is clear is that the headstones are slowly crumbling. One of Johnson’s jobs at the Genealogical Society is to document the Mormon Road cemetery and every other Prairie Pioneer graveyard in Lee Cou