We Mokenians of 2021 live in decidedly 21st century surroundings, with a fair share of the village’s historic landmarks long since disappeared from our landscape, and modern subdivisions abounding as far as the eye can see. There are comparatively few places where one can be face to face with our past, where it lives with such flavor as to be almost palpable. The further a villager drives down Regan Road, however, the more one gets a healthy taste of days gone by in eastern Will County, as the driver quickly leaves suburbia and heads down a quiet road bordered by dense foliage. Behind the hedgerow rest open fields, among the last in our once rural neighborhood. Suddenly, Marshall Cemetery is upon the visitor, emerging on the horizon like a mirage. Step through its iron gates and be surrounded by our forefathers.
Marshall Cemetery on Regan Road is one of our most time-honored landmarks. (Image courtesy Michael Philip Lyons)
While the graveyard technically lies a few rods into the perimeters of New Lenox Township, a significant number of the names found on these weathered stones lived in our village or very close to it. While the cemetery is at least 162 years old, it’s likely even older. After all these years, it’s hard to say who the first burial here was, but what is clear, is that the oldest part of the plot was set aside by Chester and Pamelia Marshall, two rugged pioneers who were among the first to settle the wilds of what would become Will County in 1833, barely a year after the end of the Black Hawk War. Natives of Onondaga County in central New York, Chester shouldered a musket as a young man in the oft-forgotten War of 1812.
Decades later, in 1878, while reflecting on our neck of the woods’ earliest settlers, Will County’s eminent historian George Woodruff penned that Chester Marshall “was… one of these Abolitionists, and a strong temperance man, always at hand at Temperance and Antislavery conventions. He was a tall, large, noble-looking man.” A deeply devout individual, he also served as a deacon in the Baptist church. Man and wife arrived on Illinoisan soil with one daughter and two sons in tow, ranging in age from 21 to 16. Their daughter, Electa Ann, would be wed to Eliphalet Atkins three years after the family’s locating here, and would live on the site of modern-day Mokena. The older of the two boys, Rollin Marshall, became a well-established farmer in far eastern New Lenox Township, and in his later years moved to Mokena, where he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a deacon in the village’s Baptist church. His younger brother, George Marshall, also took after their father, and worked as a secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society. He would leave for the California gold rush to seek his fortune, and ultimately struck pay dirt, only to meet his fate aboard a ship on the way home to Illinois in 1850. One of the few Marshalls not to be interred in this historic cemetery, the Pacific Ocean became his grave.
Patriarch and Matriarch of the Marshall family departed this mortal coil in 1859 and 1865, respectively. Chester’s original rectangular gravestone has long since been separated from its base, and now lies flush with the earth, its sides having been reclaimed by the loam. Although flecked with lichen, the old marker is clearly readable and in remarkably good shape for its age. Later a dignified monument of black marble was erected on the plot that Chester and Pamelia Marshall share with the families of their son Rollin and grandson Chester.
Pioneer Chester Marshall's gravestone can still be easily read. (Image courtesy of Michael Philip Lyons)
This peaceful acreage started out as a family plot tended to by the Marshall family and other near neighbors, until the Marshall Cemetery Association was established in 1917. The association cared for the land until aging board member Elmira McGovney transferred responsibility for the graveyard to New Lenox Township in the spring of 1988. These hallowed grounds contain the mortal remains of at least 13 heroes of the Union from the Civil War, including the dust of at least one who gave his life upon the altar of freedom. Edwin Marshall was the grandson of Chester and Pamelia Marshall, who as a 19-year-old volunteered for duty in the 20th Illinois Infantry in the autumn of 1864. He was known to his friends and family as Webb, his middle name.
Years after the war, Webb’s brother, esteemed Will County judge Albert O. Marshall, wrote a memoir entitled Army Life based on his own experiences in the conflict. In the final pages of the book, he mournfully rued his brother’s fate. He remembered that Webb “…was stricken down, while in Camp Butler (near Springfield) with that fearful scourge of the army, typhoid fever. He was brought home sick, but all assistance was in vain. He died and was buried in the little country grave-yard near our farm home.” Webb Marshall passed on January 24th, 1865, less than three months before the war ended. It’s unclear if he ever had his own gravestone, but he is still represented on the family monument along with his parents and siblings.
Just steps inside the front gate, one finds the modest grave marker of Thomas Packard Parker, the stepson of the aforementioned Rollin Marshall. Born in March 1833 at Westford in Vermont, he came west as a lad and as an adult lived and farmed in the vicinity of today’s Townline Road. He answered President Lincoln’s call for volunteers with the formation of the 100th Illinois Infantry in the summer of 1862, fighting with his Will County neighbors through the storm of shot and shell at Stones River, Tennessee that December. On September 19th, 1863 he marched into battle at Chickamauga, Georgia, and into one of the bloodiest days in our community’s history. Thomas Parker was one of at least three other Mokenians who lost their lives on this dark day. It is unknown if his earthly remains ever made it back to Illinois, or if the small monument at Marshall Cemetery is simply a cenotaph, while his bones still rest on the battlefield, in the red soil of Georgia, far from home. His name stands on the smooth black granite stone above his infant son Willie’s, who died in 1860. The grave marker now lies toppled in the grass, which is hardly the remembrance that Thomas Parker deserves, who lay his life down in the face of rebellious despotism.
As one of President Lincoln's soldiers, Thomas Parker of Mokena gave his life for the Union. He is pictured here around 1860.
Another Union soldier, one of the vaunted boys in blue, is John Collins, whose name stands proudly on his weather-beaten, government-issued grave marker. An Englishman by birth, he volunteered for service in the 57th Illinois Infantry, and served as his company’s fifer until he left the regiment after having done a stint of six months. His path eventually led to Mokena, where he lived on Front Street. He was known to villagers as a peaceable single man who kept house with what were referred to as his “canine and feline pets.” In 1906, our community’s correspondent to the Lockport Phoenix-Advertiser reckoned that he was not only the oldest resident of Mokena, but also probably the whole state, tallying his age to nearly 103. Modern research into Mr. Collins’ age is inconclusive. When he joined the army in December 1861, he gave his age as 38, indicating a birthdate of around 1823, however, when the 1900 census taker was in town, the villager stated that he was born in August 1816. Regardless of his true age, when John Collins passed away in 1907, fellow Union veteran and Mokena resident John A. Hatch, secured the simple gravestone for his townsman and brother in arms. Hatch didn’t want his old comrade to go forgotten, which is a service we could do well to remember today.
Multiple generations of the McGovney family found their rest here at Marshall Cemetery. At least 28 of them repose in these grounds, and an entire volume could be filled with their stories. A visitor can’t turn his head without seeing their venerated names chiseled in stone, all of whom dot the pages of our history. Here Elijah McGovney, there Emily McGovney, and over in a shady corner, Walter “Dick” McGovney. The gravestone of John McGovney, who departed March 12th, 1859, has been heavily weathered and has seen over 150 summers and winters. It can only be read on a perfectly sunny day, by tracing its rough letters by fingertip and with the utmost patience.
There was no truer pioneer than John McGovney, who with his wife Nancy has gone down in history as the first non-native family to settle on the future site of Mokena, having arrived in an ox-drawn wagon with their five small children in tow via Adams County, Ohio on October 9th, 1831. Not only were the McGovneys possessed of the brawny individuality that allowed them to survive in the untamed west, but the family’s head further distinguished himself by platting two additions to Mokena in the days of the hamlet’s infancy.
Founding Father John McGovney's name is barely legible on his grave marker. (Image courtesy of Michael Philip Lyons)
Clear across the cemetery from the family patriarch is the plot of Ozias and Matilda McGovney, venerated by a stately white block bearing the family name. Ozias was the third eldest son of John and Nancy McGovney, and would in his later years be known as “the grand old man of Mokena.” Named after a biblical king, he first set foot on Illinois soil the year he turned seven. As a lad Ozias McGovney was educated in a rustic country schoolhouse that predated the organization of Frankfort Township, which he would later recall as a “log house, which was fitted up with benches minus backs, which made it very uncomfortable for the pupils as they had no means of resting their aching backs.” There being no chalkboard, “a hewn slab was erected which served as a writing desk.”
In the frosty cold of January 1846, Ozias married Matilda Jane Ellsworth, a young lady five years his junior, who originally hailed from Onondaga County, New York, the same neighborhood as her neighbors and relatives, the Marshalls. Matilda McGovney was a true woman of the frontier, who used butter to straighten her hair and was also a healer, who was known to tend to the ill in an era when doctors were few and far between. Local historian Florence Pitman wrote “When (Matilda) heard of illness, with her basket of home remedies she would set forth to care for the ailing one, unafraid of any disease; diphtheria, smallpox, scarlet fever – she braved them all. ” It would also be remembered that Matilda McGovney once cured an area boy with a “physic of goose grease.” One of her choice remedies was a concoction of powdered rhubarb, sugar, water, essence of peppermint and brandy that was still used in the McGovney family well into the 20th century. A pious lady, a contemporary would describe Matilda as “faithful Christian woman” as well as being “devoted to sincerity, truth and the richness of high character.”
Seen here around 1880, Matilda Jane McGovney was a savior to our neighborhood's ill.
Over the years, Ozias and Matilda McGovney would come to stand at the head of a good Mokena family, raising five daughters and three sons who were born between 1848 and 1867. Like many in his generation, Ozias McGovney was deeply effected by the gathering storm of the Civil War. He was long an adherent of the Democratic party, but upon the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, (which had established a line north of which no slavery would be allowed) he became “suspicious of the political honesty of the leaders of the Democratic party” and became an early supporter of the new Republican party, with which he stayed for the rest of his days.
Many in the neighborhood of the not-yet formed Mokena knew Ozias simply as Squire McGovney, for he was elected to the post of justice of the peace at the first election held in the newly founded Frankfort Township in 1850. He would ultimately hold this position for twenty years, officiating at the marriages of countless local residents. Ozias later was admitted to the bar and became a country lawyer, and after the founding of Mokena in 1852, he became one our most prominent villagers. Representative of his stature in the village, he became very involved in local politics; holding not only the office of postmaster from 1875 to 1885, then again from 1889 to 1893, but also the post of Frankfort Township Supervisor from 1856, which he held on and off until 1870, at which point he “utterly refused to accept the position.” However, the township supervisor’s chair would come back to him in 1888, as it would be remembered that “the leading men of the town came to him and demanded that he accept the office again. That spring he was elected to the office of supervisor under protest, which office he held continuously for ten years.”
Of all the hats Ozias McGovney wore over the years, his most honored place in our history was that of our first mayor, a duty he was elected to by the new village board in 1880, keeping the seat for four years. A contemporary proudly stated that “He discharged the duties of each and all the offices he was elected or appointed to, faithfully, honorably and to the entire satisfaction of his constituents.”
Aside from his various elected positions, Ozias McGovney also kept a well-known general store in our village in the 19th century. He crossed the great beyond in March 1914, the year he was to have turned 90, at a time when the life expectancy for an American male was just over 50.
Portrayed here circa 1878, Ozias McGovney held many local offices, including that of Mokena's first mayor.
Of the eight children of Ozias and Matilda McGovney, their eldest son to survive into adulthood, Ozias Erwin, who was born in 1855, can also be found here in the family plot in Marshall Cemetery. As a tender lad of 15, he took a job with a surveyor’s crew that was blazing a path for a new railroad across Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. The position was not without dangers, and Erwin, as he was called, would often be separated from his coworkers. Once in Ohio, it would be remembered that “…he was overcome with an exceptionally severe attack of the ague and sank prostrated to the ground. Fortunately an old lady discovered him and had him removed to her home and took care of him until he recovered.”
Upon his return to Mokena, he went into the store business with his father in 1874, and married Georgia Knapp in 1878. After a sojourn in Manhattan conducting his own store, (and incidentally serving as this village’s first mayor) the family made Mokena their permanent home beginning in 1887. As was quickly becoming a Mokena tradition, our community’s elected and appointed chairs were by and by occupied by members of the McGovney family. Erwin was Mokena mayor for a brief span starting in 1890, then again from 1903 to 1910, not to mention a long term as postmaster at the turn of the 20th century. He breathed his last in 1910.
The sharp-eyed visitor to Marshall Cemetery will also find the modest gravestone of Ona Ellsworth McGovney, complete with masonic insignia. He is the fourth generation of the Mokena clan to be interred here. Having lived from 1879 to 1938, Ona was the son of Ozias Erwin and Georgia McGovney, and like his father and grandfather, was one of our mayors and postmasters, occupying both positions simultaneously at one point, which eventually landed him in hot water. Here too is Ona’s daughter Elmira McGovney, the last resident of our village to bear the old family name. She departed this mortal coil in 1994 at 79 years.
Heading towards the gentle slope on the eastern side of the cemetery, one happens across a short, weatherworn obelisk bearing the name Polly Marshall, who is recognized on the small monument as being the wife of Allen Denny, the father of Mokena. Behind every great man, there stands a great woman. Born Polly Marvin, she first saw the light of day on February 21st, 1797, during the waning days of George Washington’s presidency. Like many of our pioneers, her first home was in the state of New York, but where exactly has long since been lost to the ages. Young Polly was raised by her German grandfather, passing to her a “Teutonic vigor” that she carried for the rest of her life. Around 1816 she tied the knot with Nathan Marshall, fellow New Yorker and family member of Chester Marshall, the aforementioned founder of the cemetery.
Polly Denny passed away in 1884 at the age of 87, a remarkable achievement for her time. (Image courtesy of Michael Philip Lyons)
So it was in 1837, that Polly and Nathan Marshall came west and settled in Will County, which at that early date had only officially existed for one year. Two children were born to this union, Jane and Martin Marshall, but reflecting the tough and unforgiving times in which they lived, neither survived to adulthood. Compounding this grief, Polly’s husband Nathan also passed in October 1843. She wed 54-year-old farmer Allen Denny, another pioneer in the Hickory Creek Settlement, on the summer day of August 24, 1844, and together they made the prairie wilderness blossom as the rose. News of the nuptials even made it into a newspaper called The Western Citizen, based in then-far-off Chicago. The Western Citizen was our region’s premier anti-slavery publication, and its notice of their wedding speaks to their standing in this circle, as Polly’s new husband was a diehard abolitionist and operator of a stop on the Underground Railroad. As the sheltering of runaway slaves was happening in her home, Polly undoubtedly also helped break the chains of slavery too, ushering those seeking freedom on their way.
Immortality at large has remembered her husband Allen for his creation of a small subdivision along the new Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad in 1852, which would become Mokena. As this tiny community grew, Polly came to be known affectionately as “Aunt Polly.” She served as a midwife to many area mothers, and more than a few local residents would later say that Aunt Polly was present at their birth. Polly Denny ultimately passed away on July 9th, 1884, at the age of 87, and as a sign of her standing in town, the most prominent men in Mokena served as her pall bearers. She can rightfully be called our founding mother.
These are but a few of the countless stories of love, bravery and sturdiness that can be found in the lives of those who came to find eternal rest within the gates of Marshall Cemetery, hallowed grounds that are among the most historic in eastern Will County.
