Flat Matthew and American history

We took Flat Matthew to visit a couple of local cemeteries because of historical figures buried there.

There is only one veteran of the American Revolutionary War who is known to be buried in Sauk County, and the cemetery is one that we often pass on the way back from Reedsburg. So we stopped to show Flat Matthew. The gate was locked at Dellona Center Cemetery, and Flat Matthew had to look at the grave from a distance. Here he is beside the historical marker with this information:

Private John Greenslit is the only known Revolutionary War soldier buried in Sauk County. He enlisted in the Connecticut State Troop Sep 01, 1782 at the age of 15, serving one year under Captain Benjamin Durkee, stationed at Fors Trumbull and Griswold, Greenslit saw action on Long Island. He was born Jun 5, 1767 at Hampton, CT. John and Salome Pitts Greenslit came to Dellona in 1855/56 to join two of their eight children, Henry and Stephan. John Greenslit died April 1, 1856. Salome died in April, 1860, aged 94. They are buried at Dellona Center Cemetery.

John who died at age 89, owned a lot in this cemetery. However, there were markers for John and Salome in the Fairfield Cemetery. Salome died at the home of a son in Fairfield Township. As a result, it is uncertain whether John's body was removed from the Dellona Cemetery to Fairfield or whether the marker in Fairfield is a "memorial" marker. The stones at Fairfield have since deteriorated and are a pile of stones but it is believed that at least Salome is buried there.

After that touch with the Revolutionary War, we went to Spring Grove Cemetery on the edge of Wisconsin Dells to honor those who served in the Civil War. Tom's great-grandfather was among the local men who fought for the Union, and he was wounded at the Battle of Vicksburg before going on to be part of Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas which helped end the War. This statue of a Union soldier is at the highest point in the cemetery, still keeping watch.

Not far away is an unusual grave, unusual because it is decorated with a Confederate flag. This is the tomb of Belle Boyd, who had been a spy for the Confederacy during the war. Although she worked tor the South, after the War ended she toured the country, giving talks about her experiences and encouraging the unity of the nation. "One God, one flag, one people -- forever!" was her motto.

Belle had been invited by the Grand Army of the Republic to speak in Kilbourn City (as the town was then called), but she died here on June 11, 1900, before she was able to deliver her talk. The Union soldiers buried her in the local cemetery with honor. Later soil from her native Virginia was brought to the grave so that she might lie in what had been her own land, and stones were collected from all of the former Confederate states to help build her monument. And that is why there is a Confederate flag and a Confederate veteran's marker up here in a Wisconsin cemetery.

The caretaker of the cemetery says that he once saw what looked like the ghosts of Confederate soldiers near Belle's tomb, but Flat Matthew didn't see any when he posed for this picture.

Michael