The History of McCord Cemetery

By Jeanne M. Johnson

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Intro-duction

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which the cemetery is located was purchased before 1832 by John Paden ("John Peden" on the land record) as part of the federal government's public domain land tract sales. See Federal Lands for more information.

American Revolutionary War soldier Ezra Bostick arrived in the Irving Township area soon after Paden with his son-in-laws, William and Joel Knight. Brothers Mark Smith Rutledge and James Mayes Rutledge then settled near Franklin's cabin. All these individuals except Mark Smith Rutledge are buried at McCord Cemetery, including Mark Smith Rutledge's first wife and four children.

Two of the three American Revolutionary War soldiers buried in Montgomery County are interred at the McCord Cemetery and died 11 months apart during this period of early years: Ezra Bostick died in February 1843 and James Richardson died in March 1842. Of the ten veterans of the War of 1812 that are buried in Montgomery County, William Peden is buried at McCord Cemetery and died in October 1849. See Veterans for more information.

The Black Hawk War in 1832 resulted in the removal of the last organized group of American Indians from Illinois. Two of the men who served in this war are buried at McCord Cemetery: James Mayes Rutledge and Alexander Tinnen Williams. See Veterans for more information. After Indian raids ceased to be a concern, more families ventured into the area. The Wiley's and Grantham's settled three miles east of McCord Cemetery and are buried in Hopewell Cemetery (also known as the Grantham Cemetery). Visit the website of Irving Area Historical Museum for more township local history.

Early settler John Paden died February 6, 1840, and was buried on his land. His grave marked the seventh in the burial ground that would later become known as McCord Cemetery. His wife Isabela had preceded him in death by two years and the other existing burials belonged to Rutledge and Knight individuals who were neighbors and friends of John Paden. When John's son Elijah donate the burial ground to the county officials in 1863, both Elijah's parents and four of his siblings were interred there. Elijah lived another 24 years until 1887 when he joined his family in the burial ground.

By 1860, businesses were becoming established in nearby Irving Village. Railroad tracks were laid and a passenger train had a regular stop at the village depot. The village soon became the site of a hotel, shops, a mill, and other businesses; improving life for the surrounding farmers and attracting new residents. The township's growth was reflective of the county's growth. In 1840, the county population was 735 individuals. By 1860, it had swelled to 13,978. Irving Township is 36 square miles and the average farm size in the county in 2009 is 362 acres, with 86% of the farms still owned by families or individuals. Farming remains the major economic factor with twice as many men in Irving involved with agriculture and natural resources than the current county rate of 7%.

Historical records clearly indicate that McCord Cemetery was an expanded version of the family burial ground commonly known as the neighborhood burial ground. This type of burial ground was shared between neighbors and, in the case of McCord Cemetery, also consisted of interments of nearby families that intermarried, a common occurrence in pioneer settlements where the population was sparse. Censuses, marriage records, land records, plat maps, and other sources help identify the individuals buried at McCord Cemetery, their relationships to one another, and their homes' proximity to the neighborhood burial ground.

Although McCord and Hopewell Cemeteries are the oldest known cemeteries in Irving Township, the earliest burials may be unidentified for several reasons:

1) According to grave marker inscriptions, McCord Cemetery's earliest burial in 1835 belonged to Martha, the 13-year-old daughter of Mark Smith Rutledge whose family lived nearby. Hopewell Cemetery's earliest burial in 1833 belonged to Mary Elizabeth Sights, the wife of Revolutionary War soldier Jacob Sights. It seems plausible, considering the high rate of mortality for the era and the hazards of pioneer living in the wilderness, that deaths occurred between the early settlement in 1826 and these initial cemetery burials at McCord and Hopewell seven and nine years later, respectively.

2) The absence of established roads and population centers; and the scarcity of navigational waterways in the township dictate that these burials were not centralized in a few locations but spread out among many. Irving Township's settlers had acquired large land tracts consisting of 40, 80, 160 and more acres and smaller burial grounds on individual family farms, in addition to common burial grounds used by a group of neighboring farms, were most likely among the first of these frontier burial sites.

3) Other burial sites in the area and individual gravesites within McCord Cemetery may be lost to time. Simple wooden crosses or large field stones were sometimes used as grave markers, particularly when stone masons were not yet established in the area, and these crude and simple forms were more susceptible to obscurity. Some of the early burial grounds may have been plowed over by unsuspecting new land owners or trodden by cattle and other livestock, both actions that would have destroyed or pushed grave markers below the earth's surface and out of sight. This is especially true of the small family burial grounds on farms.

Regardless of whether the first burials in the area occurred elsewhere or older gravesites in the McCord cemetery exist but are undocumented, the historic significance of the cemetery is indisputable. This place is deserving of our attention.

The number of known burials in these early years from the period 1826-1860 is 49. This is nearly 19% of the total number of burials in the cemetery.

The Early Years

(1826-1860)

According to local historians, the first settler in Irving Township was John Lawrence Franklin who built his cabin in 1826 and died sometimes after 1850. He had received a federal land patent from preemption rights on 160 acres immediately west of John Paden's tract where McCord Cemetery is located. Franklin's final resting place is undetermined. The 80-acre tract of land on