COUNTY History

Forgotten Cemeteries Become News in Platte County

By Lynn Cassity

COUNTY Columnist

In the mid-1800s as Platte County settlers started lives and families here, they were faced with a basic human need:  burial of their dead.  Several of these old settlers’ cemeteries near KCI airport have made news lately because they might cease to exist.

At a May 10, 2006, meeting it was announced that Kansas City planned to move ten cemeteries on land near KCI airport.  Kansas City, as owner of the land, has petitioned the court to move several cemeteries to make way for development. 

Following the announcement, descendants of the settlers, the caretakers, and historic-minded citizens became actively involved in finding out as much about the cemeteries as possible before any action was taken.   After a subsequent city meeting in December 2006, efforts focused on the revised list of five cemeteries slated to be moved to a new site on city land.  A “discovery process” is still going on as information is gathered for the March 17^th, 2008, court hearing.  

The Cemeteries

The William Hoy Cemetery was removed from the legal proceedings after a deed was found which determines the cemetery is not owned by Kansas City.    Only owners of cemeteries can petition to move them, so the William Hoy cemetery is no longer under consideration in the case at this time.

The Brightwell Cemetery is west of the airport tower and one-half mile off the road.  It was overgrown with thorns, trees, and thistles in 2003 when a small group of men hacked a path into the cemetery to clean it up.  W.L. Brightwell arrived in Platte County in 1842 by covered wagon with his family.  During the Civil War he was hanged by Jayhawkers until he revealed where his money was hidden and was then robbed of it.  He died in July 1868 with his will stating that each of his two sons would donate land for a future family burial spot.  Some of the men who cleaned the cemetery, who still tend it and are now trying to save it, are descendants of W.L.  The Brightwell Cemetery is included in land to be used for a proposed exclusive race track.

The Kimsey Cemetery is south of the airport tower and was “cleaned up” over fifteen years ago.  This cleaning consisted of pushing the grave stones off the family burial plot.  The graves are still there but the identifying markers are gone.  One tombstone has been found lying against a tree.  It belonged to Nancy, a girl of seven or eight years of age.  There were 25-30 names of people listed as buried in this cemetery, according to a published survey of it, but those graves will be almost impossible to locate without assistance.

The Samuel Hoy Cemetery is named for the man and his family who are interred on a ridge where people can get lost hunting for it, even when they know it’s there.  To find it is to follow a path in the wilderness until reaching a ridge and three small, commercially cut marble stones under a cedar tree.  The burial ground has eight or nine sedimentary rocks jutting upright, with two or three of these barely poking through the surface.  There appear to be four rows of graves in a line pattern formation, but with no markers it’s impossible to say if these could be 44 adult human remains, or if so, if they were land owners or slaves.   Land clearing efforts also might have moved the stones from the graves.

The Miller-Rixey Cemetery is near Hampton and is one of the few that can be seen from the road and recognized as a cemetery.  It has been vandalized in the past, but both sides of the family now tend it.  Jesse Miller owned the land the cemetery is on when he died in March of 1882.  He had one daughter, Virginia, who married Wellington W. Rixey and they made their home with her parents.  She died, probably in childbirth, within a year or two of marrying.  Jesse Miller made his son-in-law his heir with the stipulation that his widow would have the land until her death.  Wellington Rixey remarried and had several children.  It is the descendants of these Rixey children who help maintain the cemetery along with sideline Miller descendants.

One burial ground featured prominently in the removal discussions is the “slave cemetery” near the Brightwell Cemetery.   Records of the burial grounds of slaves in Platte County are almost non-existent.  Only word-of-mouth and the handing down of stories support the belief that there are former or freed slaves in and near the family burial grounds.   Six area people familiar with the stories searched for the site in February, 2007.  Modern topographical maps were used to find areas that might be the right size for a grave or show ground indentations from collapsed wooden caskets or body deterioration.  Areas with red granite stones upended as possible head markers were noted as likely slave grave sites. 

At these possible sites, they walked the ground “witching”.  Witching for graves is very similar to the water witching method used to locate possible well sites.   The walkers carry two thin wooden rods, holding them parallel to the ground.  If the rods cross, that marks a possible human grave below.

Despite these methods, after receiving court permission to dig at one of the possible sites near the Brightwell Cemetery, no human remains could be located. Area archeologist Jimmy Johnson, who could possibly have ancestors buried in or near the Brightwell Cemetery, led the team that examined the area for the slave cemetery.  There was no remaining evidence to suggest anyone was buried where they dug.  Despite the failure to find the human remains they hoped to protect, proponents of the slave cemetery theory believe the remains are there, but in an area other than the one they examined.