| Description |
lar board was nailed on the outside of the post just under the top board. A 12 inch board was then nailed on the out-side bottom of the posts. Between these boards were stapled five strands of barbed wire evenly spaced with a one by four (1x4) inch board nailed vertically to cover each post. All lumber was painted white, a practice that was to continue until 1902. The barbwire was a type called hogwire, which was made of very thin galvanized metal. It was one-half inch wide with a one-fourth inch barb on one side spaced every four inches with the wire completely twisted (360 degrees). A pattern of this fence can still be seen (1977) near the northwest corner of the cemetery. In the 1880's, John Green of Ehpraim, as proof to the public that he had made a "squatter's right" claim to the quarter section in which the cemetery is located, built a rough lumber, one-room house and dug an open two-bucket well, the water of which was not fit for culinary purposes. These improvements were made inside and north of the cemetery en-trance. On May 12, 1891, Green filed a homestead entry that covered his squatter's rights. He received a patent to the same on March 25, 1895. 2 He then deeded 20.1 acres to Ephraim City for a consideration of $76.00. On May 23, 1903, the City of Ephraim sold 12.31 acres to D. N. Beal for $138.09. Ephraim City retained the 8.30 acres which comprise the Pioneer Cemetery. Two toilets (outdoor, two holer) were built about 1902. Over the years flash rainstorms have leveled many of the graves making their location very uncertain. (Unknown graves have often been encountered while digging a new grave, especially in the east two-thirds of the part just north of the middle road.) At the "turn of the century" there were several times more visible graves in this area than are seen today (1977). My grandmother, Annie Marie Iverson, was told before she left Denmark that if she came to America she would be buried in an "unknown grave." She arrived in Ephraim in 1857. She died in the fall of 1872 while my father, Andrew Peter Olsen, was on a freighting trip to Pioche, Nevada. -93- |
