Cemetery may soon be in city’s hands

PORT WASHINGTON - Union Cemetery in Port Washington is a quiet place of repose for hundreds of people, including pillars of the community such as Barnum Blake, Leopold Eghart, Delos Smith and Harry Bolens.

But it’s also a place where people who aren’t well known — some of whom were never identified — have been laid to rest in a potter’s field on the west side of the eight-acre cemetery.

Looming over the graves is the anchor of the steamer Toledo, which sank off Port Washington on Oct. 24, 1856. More than 40 people were killed — the exact number is unknown — and many of the bodies that were recovered were buried in a common grave in the cemetery.

Since 2017, the City of Port Washington Street Department has been helping to care for the cemetery, aiding the Port Washington Cemetery Association by mowing the grounds and trimming the trees.

Recognizing the fact the city will likely be asked to take over the cemetery’s operations someday soon, the draft 2025 capital budget includes $50,000 to not only continue maintenance operations but also to map the cemetery using a GIS system.

“We have to prepare to take on a cemetery,” City Administrator Melissa Pingel told the General Government and Finance Committee. “There’s a lot that goes into it.”

The city doesn’t have the option of refusing to take over the cemetery when it’s asked to, Ald. Dan Benning, the committee chairman said.

“By state law, we can’t say no,” he said.

A request to take over the cemetery hasn’t come yet, officials noted, but that day is coming.

“It’s inevitable,” Craig Heatwole, president of the Port Washington Cemetery Association, said. “I’m keeping the books and preparing for the day the city does take over.”

While cemeteries have perpetual care funds, low interest rates on investments and the fact fewer people are being buried have taken their toll on the fund.

The city took on mowing the cemetery after it fell into disrepair. Heatwole, who described himself at the time as “president, secretary, treasurer and chief groundskeper” for the Cemetery Association, said the group had to lay off its groundskeeper because of a lack of funds.

Realizing that the condition of its cemeteries reflects on the community, aldermen agreed that the city should take on some of the maintenance duties.

Union Cemetery was started in 1851 when the family of Solon Vail buried him on their land. Family members deeded the original three acres to the Town of Port Washington in 1854, stipulating the land be used for a cemetery, and a year later it was sold to the Port Washington Cemetery Association.

Heatwole said Port followed in the footsteps of many small towns, naming the cemetery after the Union following the Civil War.

There is a significant number of Civil War veterans buried in the cemetery, among them Edward Blake, who during the battle of Franklin wrapped the American flag around himself to protect it from capture. An iconic Civil War photograph depicts Blake a few years after the war in his Union uniform with the tattered flag.

The cemetery, Heatwole said, was primarily used by the city’s Protestant families, but is home to people of various denominations.

The cemetery, he noted, can be seen as a primer in city history.

Not only are residents and visitors of all walks of life buried there, there are areas where people who died of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 and a later cholera epidemic are interred, Heatwole said.

Heatwole has a number of books of handwritten notes about those buried in the cemetery, including some that are in bad shape because of their age. One from the early 1900s was hand sewn and all the strings have broken.

But the information contained in these volumes and the monuments at the cemetery ensure these people won’t be forgotten, no matter who operates the cemetery, he said.