Agnew Cemetery, Location UncertainIndex of Agnew Cemetery burials . . . .
There is considerable dispute as to the location of the Agnew Cemetery, a single person burial site
containing the remains of David Agnew, Senior, who froze to death in a
late spring snow storm on April 4, 1835. In fact, one early source indicates
that Agnew's remains were taken to Ohio for burial. Some sources suggest that
Agnew died on Morgan Prairie, while other sources suggest he died somewhere west
of Hickory Point, which would be located in Lake County, Indiana. Agnew was
supposedly buried near where he was found by his brothers-in-law on the
prairie. Hence, he may be buried in Porter County or Lake County. David Agnew, Junior, was born
May 4, 1835, one month after his father's death.
According to a newspaper article published in The Vidette-Messenger,
Valparaiso, Porter County, Indiana, on August 18, 1936 [Volume 10, Section 3,
Pages 17-18]:
"Leading off from these main routes [Pottawatomie Trail] were
several branch trails worthy of notice. One branched to the
westward from the Pottawatomie (near Tassinong); crossed
Morgan and Horse prairies; passed Indian Town (now Hebron)
and Hickory Point; then on to the Hickory Creek region
of Illinois. This is the path on which David Agnew lost his
life on that fatal night more than a century ago."
"The first burial in Porter county was the burial of David
Agnew.
Mr. Agnew was the brother-in-law of David Bryant of Pleasant
Grove, Lake county, and a relative of the Bryants of Porter
county.
He had sent his family on to Pleasant Grove and was coming
with
a load of furnishing. He was following the old Indian trail
that
leads west from Tassinong when a blinding snowstorm struck.
The
trail was soon covered and lost. Mr. Agnew loosed the oxen
and
tried to find his way on. Later he drove a stake into the
ground
and tried to keep warm by walking around it in a circle. His
body
was found the next morning and taken to the cabin of Lewis
Comer for the funeral."
"Lewis Comer was born in Virginia on December 25, 1798. Early
in life he decided to be a minister and for several years
traveled
about the states of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio
and
Indiana. He made his home in Ohio and Michigan before coming
to Morgan township, Porter county, Indiana, on April 19,
1835,
where he bought a farm of 108 acres. He first duty as
minister
was to preach the funeral of Mr. Agnew, who had frozen to
death
in a storm on Morgan Prairie. The funeral was preached in
Comer's cabin and the body was put to rest somewhere on
Morgan Prairie.1 This was the first funeral in
Porter county."
The following concerning David Agnew was published in 1876 in A. G. Hardesty's
Illustrated Historical Atlas of Porter County, Indiana:
"In the fall of this year [1835] a Mr. Agnew, a relative of
the Bryants
of this county, and a brother-in-law to David Bryant of
Pleasant
Grove, Lake county,2 to which place he had sent
his family, and
was following the next day with an ox wagon loaded with his
household goods, but, encountering one of those fierce and
intensely cold storms, that like the simoon, comes on
unawares,
Mr. Agnew lost his way, and although but little snow fell, it
soon
covered the Indian trail which he was following, and when but
a short distance from Mr. Bryant's home, he became hopelessly
bewildered, and after unloosing his team and traveling a
short
distance he found a stake driven into the ground, around
which
he travelled many times that last night of his earthly life,
and
close to which his frozen body was found the next day and
taken back to Morgan Prairie and there the first burial3
of a white
man that ever took place in this county, of which we have
any authentic record, was the depositing of Mr. Agnew's
remains in their last resting place."4
Timothy H. Ball, in his 1904 Encyclopedia of Genealogy and Biography of
Lake County, Indiana (pp. 19-20) writes the following concerning
Agnew's death:5
In the course of years, and in any community, as human life
is, there
will always be some events of more than ordinary sadness. At
least
two of such events may fittingly be recorded here. The first
is the death
by freezing of David Agnew, whose wife was a Bryant
[Nancy
Bryant],
on the night of April 4, 1835. As one of the Bryant family
making the
settlement at Pleasant Grove
[located in Cedar Creek Township, Lake
County], it fell to his lot to take an ox team from
Morgan prairie in
Porter county to the new settlement.
The weather had been mild with some rain, and snow and cold
were
no longer expected; but on that April day there came "a most
terrible
snowstorm." Circumstances had separated David Agnew with the
ox
team from the others of the party, but as the storm became
very
severe Simeon Bryant stopped at Hickory Point, built a fire,
and waited
for their coming. They came not as expected, and at about
four in the
afternoon, Simeon Bryant, thinking that Mr. Agnew had
concluded not
to come on in that storm, building a large fire of logs for a
camping
place if he should come, started on foot for the settlement,
distant
ten miles west. He was "a remarkably strong, robust man,"
said one
of the family, but was thoroughly chilled when at dark he
reached the
cabin of E. W. Bryant [Elias W. Bryant]. David Agnew was not
a very
strong or healthy man, and no one thought of his undertaking
that
perilous trip of ten long miles on such a fearful night. The
next morning,
when the storm was over, an April fog coming on, as Simeon
Bryant,
David Bryant, and E. W. Bryant
[David, Elias, and Simeon were brothers]
went out to look over the land, they saw some object lying in the snow,
and E. W. Bryant said, "It looks like a dead man." David
Bryant took
a closer look and said, "It looks like Agnew." And the body
of David
Agnew it proved to be, beside which those three stout-hearted
men
stood aghast. What that night had been to him in suffering
and in
struggle no one could fully know.
I quote from the Bryant narrative: "Upon looking around they
found
beaten paths where Agnew had at first run around in a circle
to try to
keep from perishing, and then, as if strength had failed and
he had not
been able to do that, he had supported himself with his arms
around
the trunks of the trees, running around them until there was
quite a
path worn, and leaving the lint of his coat sticking in the
bark. He
finally got hold of a pole about seven or eight feet long,
and placing
one end on the ground and leaning on the other, ran around in
a circle
until, as it would appear, his strength was entirely
exhausted, and he
fell across his support, leaving no sign of having made a
struggle after."
We can see in this account how heroically Agnew struggled for
life; and
that he should have perished so near a home and shelter seems
doubly
pitiable. It was found that he had reached Hickory Point with
his oxen
and wagon, but instead of trying to camp there with them by
the fire,
had drawn out the keys from the ox bows, dropped them with
the yokes
all chained together upon the ground, thrown out a few
unbound sheaves
of oats from his wagon as food for the oxen, and had started
immediately
to follow Simeon Bryant across the ten miles of prairie and
marsh.
The Bryant narrative states there was an Indian trail passing
by Hickory
Point and through Pleasant Grove, but that the night was very
dark,
although the snow-storm was followed by almost incessant
lightning.
Somehow Agnew made his way across, but perished within reach
of help.
Another wrinkle arises in the death of David Agnew concerning his burial. It
is generally believed that Agnew was buried very close to where he was found
dead by the Bryants. However, Clara Vaile Braiden's genealogy of the Bryant
family published in 19136 states that David Agnew died on "Apr.
15, 1835, at Pleasant Grove, Ind., and is buried at Westville [Champaign
County], Ohio."
There are no Champaign County, Ohio, burial records to support Braiden's
claim. It would have been quite remarkable if Agnew's remains
were taken back to Ohio given the distance and cost involved in such
transport. Futhermore, Agnew's wife, Nancy (Bryant) Agnew, was eight weeks
pregnant at the time of this tragic incident, and she was caring for three
children under the age of five. There is a slight possibility that Braiden was referring to
Westville in LaPorte County, which would be northeast of Morgan Prairie.
Like Champaign County, Ohio, there are no burials records from the Westville
area indicating that Agnew is buried there.
Given the information from sources above, it appears that the exact location of Agnew's burial has been lost to history.
1 Lewis Comer's homestead was located in the southeast quarter of
the southeast quarter of Section 11 in Morgan Township.
2 David Bryant would later locate in the north one-half
of Section 23 of
Boone Township in Porter County.
3 Note that David Agnew was very likely not the first white man
buried in Porter County. It is known that Joseph Bailly
buried his
son, Robert, at what is now referred to as the Bailly
Cemetery
in 1827.
4 Agnew's property was located in south one-half of the southwest
quarter of Section 18 in Morgan Township, approximately two
miles northwest of Comer's cabin. Given locations of the
Comer and Agnew properties, Agnew may be buried in either
Section 17, 18, 19, 20, or 21 of Morgan Township. Other
accounts
suggest Agnew was buried between Hickory Point in Porter
County
and Pleasant Grove in Lake County.
5
It appears that Ball received his information about Agnew's death from
a member of the Bryant family.
6 Braiden, Clara Vaile. 1913. Bryant Family History: Ancestry
and Descendants
of David Bryant (1756) of Springfield, N. J.; Washington Co.,
PA; Knox Co.,
Ohio; and Wolf Lake, Noble Co., Ind. Chicago, Illinois:
Clara Vaile
Braiden. 258 p. [see pp. 55-56]
NOTE: If you have information that you
like to add to this database, including corrections, then please contribute it
to
Steve Shook.
Agnew Cemetery data prepared by Steven R. Shook