1875 Directory of
MOUND CEMETERY
Pg. 99
(Transcribed by Sharon Wick)

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MOUND CEMETERY

     Between the site of Fort St. Clair and Eaton, on the Garrison Branch, is situated Mound Cemetry and Maple Grove Avenue.  Four acres of these grounds were donated for burial purposes by William Bruce, the proprietor of Eaton, and some twenty acres have since been added by the Trustees.  These grounds are bounded on the west by the bluff of the Garrison Branch, thereby affording fine sites for vaults all along the line. The whole is enclosed by a substantial board fence, and laid out m walks and carriage ways, which are neatly graveled. —  Into the grounds from the north, there are two main entrances, and the approach is mostly shaded on two sides by rows of young maples upon the grounds.  Native young forest trees are left standing, and the open plains are supplied by young maple and sugar trees.  The bluff is left in its native state overgrown by all varieties of young trees, intermingled by the red bud and dogwood; which, when in bloom, add great beauty to the locality.
     The cemetery grounds are adorned by many beautiful monuments, evergreens and the like, as fitting mementoes to the dead.  Among them is one to the memory of Fergus Holderman, who died in 1838.  Upon it are some exquisitively beautiful devices, carved by the lamented Shubel Clevenger, which were among his first attempts at sculpture.  It is a pity that so fine a specimen of art was carved upon free stone, for the beauty of the cherubs the oak and the rose wreaths are fading away.  Mr. Clevenger, through the patronage of some friends, afterwards went to Italy as an American artist, where he wrought some very fine designs in marble and at the time of his death was the pride of his country.  Here his health failed him, and on his way home, he died in the prime of life, and was buried in the sea, with no memento to mark his resting spot, except the ocean wave.
     Among the specimens of fine work, which adorned the grounds, may be mentioned the Brooke monument and the majestic Scotch granite shaft suited to the grave of Cornelius Vanausdal.  Within the precincts of the one, lies the remains of Rev. Jas. B. Finley, the early pioneer Methodist minister of the West, and under the other the remains of Cornelius Vanausdal, the first merchant of Eaton and the best business man the county has hitherto produced.  These men were both marked characters in life, and within their respective spheres exercised an influence which is yet felt in this community.  But the principal object of attraction however is the monument to Lieut. Lowery and others who fell with him in 1713, as narrated in the sketch of Washington township.  This monument was constructed by LaDow & Hamilton, of Dayton, and was contributed to the memory of the pioneer soldiers by the public spirited citizens of Eaton, in 1847.  It is composed of a plain Rutland marble shaft about fourteen feet in height, and stands upon a sharp and well defined artificial mound which forms a beautiful base, and gives it a fine proportion.  The monument, within itself, is not so finely wrought as several others in the locality, but connected as it is with western adventure and the long extinct race of mound builders, it is the chief ornament of Mound Cemetery.  From the mound, the grounds of the Cemetery were named; and to this monument all strangers, on entering the cemetery, are inclined to go and examine the double structure, in which ancient and modern civilization meet.  The mound was opened from the crown to the base, by an excavation, of a hole about five feet square, which was neatly walled by solid masonry, and a tall box dressed in mourning, containing the remains of the departed soldiers was placed in the vault, and the stone base of the monument placed on the edges of the wall, on all sides, and then the plinth, or the immediate base of the shaft.  It is a substantial structure, with suitable inscriptions, and well calculated to commemorate the last resting place of the pioneer soldiers for ages to come.