One piece world seeker stepping stones map

soldiersвЂ™, they later installed a bronze plaque to honor him. Giving the generalвЂ™s grave the same recognition as other U.S. Phillips, owner of the surrounding farm, they engaged the help of the Kane County Veterans of Foreign Wars to clear the area and unearth fallen grave stones. After 20 years of knocking on the wrong doors, in 1954 they persuaded the Warrenville American Legion to establish an annual custom of decorating the generalвЂ™s grave. Mier and Ernest Lundine, another Batavia man interested in the abandoned cemetery, began a campaign to raise interest in Pioneer Cemetery.

While he served overseas in World War I, neighborhood children continued the practice. His discovery of MeadвЂ™s grave in 1907 prompted the patriotic young man to begin placing a flag there every Memorial Day. Inaccuracies about Pioneer Cemetery abound, but one certainty remains: if not for MierвЂ™s discovery and his later efforts, the place might have fallen into ruin.

But records provided by Fermilab Archivist Adrienne Kolb show that he purchased the land at a cost of $321.97 from a private seller. Another stray piece of local lore holds that Mead received the land from the government as a reward for his wartime services. Historical evidence indicates that Mead was still in New York at the time, however. Pioneer Cemetery was formerly called вЂњBlackhawk War CemeteryвЂќ because of a mistaken belief that General Mead fought in an 1830s Illinois war against the Sac and Fox Indians led by Chief Black Hawk. A poem on the two-year-oldвЂ™s headstone describes the tragedy: вЂњShe woke the cup of life to sip / Too bitter вЂtwas to drain / She merely touched it to her lips / And then she slept again.вЂќ Henrietta, her sister, followed only three years later. Agnes Mead, the generalвЂ™s granddaughter, died at the age of seven months and 17 days in 1848. While the earliest recorded burial there occurred in 1839, all seven of the cemeteryвЂ™s headstones that display dates reveal deaths between 18, most likely from a cholera epidemic. Following a common practice, the Meads used a previously established cemetery in their pasture as the familyвЂ™s burial ground. There, he joined his sonвЂ™s family and established a 29-acre homestead in 1845. Some time later, after being named вЂњGeneralвЂќ in the state militia, he began a career as county sheriff.ДЄfter retiring as sheriff and spending time in state politics, Mead moved from his native New York to Batavia. When accused of disarming himself out of fear, Mead offered to prove his courage against any willing to challenge it. Ironically, the terms of surrender would have allowed him to keep the weapon. When his regiment, outnumbered by over 1,000 Indians and British troops, faced surrender in the Battle of Queenstown Heights, Mead hid his sword on a rock-strewn bluff to keep it from enemy hands. Thompson Mead, the son of a revolutionary soldier, served the New York state militia as a lieutenant colonel in the War of 1812. The young man took particular interest in one marked вЂњGeneral Thompson Mead. Obscured by a prickly tangle of raspberry bushes, the abandoned plot appeared to contain about 40 headstones.

Worn by time and overgrown by nature, the cemetery might have disappeared, if not for the efforts of one Batavia man.ДЇormer Batavia postmaster Augie Mier, who donated an extensive collection of American Indian artifacts to Fermilab, stumbled across the cemetery while rabbit hunting in 1907. Over 150 years of wind, snow, mud and hail have rendered the inscriptions on nearly half of the surviving sandstone markers illegible. Broken pieces of the stones peak through the grass.

But the condition of the cemeteryвЂ™s 18 grave markers reveals its former neglect. Tucked away in a quiet corner of FermilabвЂ™s high-energy world lies a 2,500-square-foot parcel of land known as вЂњPioneer Cemetery.вЂќ Wind whispers through the evergreens, lending the fenced, neatly trimmed area a sense of protected serenity. BataviaвЂ™s retired postmaster, Augie Mier, discovered an abandoned cemetery-and saved it from ruin.

One piece world seeker stepping stones map