David Emmert gave the land for the old grave yard and in 1852 laid out the West Carroll addition to Mount Carroll, sometimes called Loudon after the native place of some of the early settlers. (I believe Loudon is a typo, and London is the correct name. Many of the ancestors of early settlers of Carroll County were English.)

The site for the graveyard was then open country, uncultivated; Mr. Elijah Bailey said that, when he was a young man, breaking prairie on the Emmert claim, he used to turn his cattle out to graze where the graveyard now is. Some years later there was a lone grave there and it was an object of no little curiosity. The young people of the settlement used to take a walk over there on the Sabbath day, to look at this lone grave. It was the final resting place of a stranger by the name of Smith; Joseph Welty, a carpenter, who came to Mount Carroll through his acquaintance with David Emmert, made this statement in regard to this stranger and the beginning of the graveyard. In July 1844, one H. Smith came here from Xenia, Ohio, and was taken sick of dysentery on the river, enroute to the Galena lead mines. He got off the boat at Savanna and came on a wagon to Mount Carroll. Welty waited on him until he died; this was the first death in Mount Carroll.

When the man was dead Mr. Welty went to N. Halderman at the mill to see about a burial place and he said, “Wait until David Emmert comes over and we will see about it.” Mr. Emmert soon came and said, “We must have a graveyard.” Mr. Halderman, Mr. Emmert, and Mr. Welty went across the breast of the milldam which was then used for a wagon road, having a bridge across the mill race. They looked about the ridge on the north side of the millpond and concluded that it was not sufficiently easy of access; then Mr. Emmert proposed to go over to the grounds where the cemetery now is. There he told Mr. Welty to select a spot, which he did close by a large white oak tree, and commenced to dig the grave. After digging awhile, William Powers came over and helped him. When the grave was dug Mr. Welty went over to Fred Williams’ shop and they made the coffin of black walnut, also a handbarrow; on this they bore the coffin to the grave the same evening. The coffin was laid to the ground without a rough box; boards were then laid over the coffin on shoulders cut in the earth. Dr. Judd was the attending physician. There was no ceremony at the grave.

The next death in Mount Carroll was that of Rebecca, a one year old child of Thomas and Margaret Rapp in the summer of 1845; it took the summer diarrhea of infants with fever. Dr. Abraham Hostetter was the physician, there were no religious services, she was laid in a grave beside Smith. Mr. Welty helped Fred Williams make that coffin. The next grave was either Keefer’s or that of Daniel Christian, Sr., he was a soldier in the War of 1812. Welty helped dig these graves and helped to make the coffins. The price of a good walnut coffin was five dollars and nothing was charged for digging the grave. Daniel Christian Sr. died December 20, 1847; after this, burials were more frequent. Welty and Williams made the coffins for five or six years.

The plat of ground set apart for a graveyard by David Emmert was eventually filled with graves until there was no room for more. These lots were all free to any person who needed a place for burial. Oakhill Cemetery was laid out by Mr. N. Halderman on lands he owned adjoining the old graveyard. The graves in this city of the dead number more now than the living in the city near by. Instead of natures’ monument that marked the sight of the first grave, a beautiful oak tree, great monuments and tombstones encumber the ground, so vast are some of them it seems as though mother earth can scarcely bear their weight, indeed the little lots on which they stand could not bear them up without the assistance of their neighbors.