Dove Hill
Cemetery
This cemetery has been referred to as the Chinese Cemetery
for well over 30 years. There is no evidence that any
Chinese people are buried here. Some have said the name
comes from Chinese laborers who died here while working on
the Union Pacific Railroad when it was constructed through
Buffalo County in 1866. It is true that the Union Pacific
hired many Chinese laborers. But they came from China to the
west coast of the United States, so they worked on the west
end of the route, from California to Promontory Point in
Utah. Irish immigrants who arrived on the east coast worked
on the east end of the railroad from Omaha to Promontory
Point in Utah. Therefore, if any railroad laborers were
buried here they would have been Irish not Chinese.
The only other Chinese person of record who lived in Buffalo
County in the past was one man who lived in Kearney during
the Boom Period of 1887-1892. He operated a laundry. The
only other Orientals that I have seen mentioned are some
Korean students who lived here in the early 1900s and some
Japanese laborers who worked in beet fields when sugar beets
were grown in this county.
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The Dove Hill Cemetery is located in Section 30 of Collins
Township, north of Highway 30 on Dove Hill Road
approximately two miles. It was named for Dove Hill School
which was located across the road before it was closed and
consolidated with the Green Hill school district.
Not much is known about this cemetery. According to research
done by a Kearney High School student for a class during
school year 2001-2, the land set aside for the cemetery
grounds was recorded at the Register of Deeds office in the
late 1880s. According to those records it is still set
aside for use as a cemetery. No written records remain to
our knowledge.
When the Ft. Kearny Genealogical Society read the Buffalo
County cemeteries and published their listings in 1978 they
could not find any history of this cemetery. At that time
they found stones for the following burials:
Hicks, Mary Florence 26 Sept 1891 30 Oct 1891
Richards, Kathrine 1854 1886
Saunders [no first name] [no dates] Under 2 years,
daughter of Jacob & Ollie
Schonau, John 1829 1902
Schonau, Kathrine 1831 1909, Wife of John
Sobestie, Mrs. 12 Jan 1900, 60 years
Thompson, Sobeski Richards 7 Nov 1845 12 Jan 1900, Wife
of Wesley L.
Daughter of William & Laura Hungerford Richards
Thompson, Wesley Lafayette 4 Sept 1837 9 Dec 1884
Son of Gordon & Martha Ann
Dora Day donated a picture of Katheryn Harting Schanou to
Trails & Rails Museum (1995:1.1) Information on the donor
sheet says she is buried in Dove Hill Cemetery in Lot #35.
In a scrapbook donated by Wilma Crossley Anderson is an
account book which was kept by her father, W. T. Crossley.
He kept track of expenses when the family traveled. The
first trip was taken in 1893. There is also a page of family
records in this book. The following burials were in Dove
Hill Cemetery. These would be the earliest burials in the
cemetery.
Crossley, Adelia Learning 19 Oct 1880 died at 4 a.m.,
daughter of A.J. &
Jeanett Crossley
Crossley, infant daughter of A.J. & Jeanett Crossley 2 Jan
1883 stillborn
Crossley, Jeanett 9 Apr 1883 died at 4 a.m., wife of A.
J. Crossley
Kearney Cemetery records show that when A. J. Crossley died
in 1893 he was buried there and Adelia and Jeanett were
moved to two other spaces in the same lot.
Since no written cemetery records have been found, there is
no way at this time to answer some of the obvious questions
that arise from the information taken from the tombstones.
The accuracy of the readings of the stones cannot be checked
either because most of the tombstones have disappeared since
this reading was done. The cemetery was a favorite spot
during the 1980s and early 1990s for high school and
college students to have keggers. Most of the stones were
vandalized during that time.
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From Buffalo Tales, February 1987, Vol. 10, No. 2, The
Farming Community of Buffalo County, 1886 (Columns in the
Hub written by Grand Curiosity describing the area west
and northwest of Kearney)
A cemetery association has been formed at Dove Hill. A
board of trustees was elected whose names are as follows: A.
J. Crossley, John McConville, Geo. A. Mancer, E. Richards
and James McKittrick, secretary. A. J. Crossley gave one
acre of land for the purpose. . . .The spot is very
desirable, being dry, upon the table land and six miles from
Kearney.
[Perhaps Crossley gave this acre of land because there were
already three family members buried here.]
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Blanche Zeller Jones phone call 5-25-2005
Bob Meline said there was a small stone in the Dove Hill
Cemetery with the name Zeller on it.
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Total list as known from these sources:
Crossley, Adelia Learning 19 Oct 1880 died at 4 a.m.,
daughter of A.J. &
Jeanett Crossley (moved to Kearney Cemetery)
Crossley, infant daughter of A.J. & Jeanett Crossley 2 Jan
1883 stillborn
Crossley, Jeanett 9 Apr 1883 died at 4 a.m., wife of A.
J. Crossley (moved to
Kearney Cemetery)
Hicks, Mary Florence 26 Sept 1891 30 Oct 1891
Richards, Kathrine 1854 1886
Saunders [no first name] [no dates] Under 2 years,
daughter of Jacob & Ollie
Schonau, John 1829 1902
Schonau, Kathrine 1831 1909, Wife of John
Sobestie, Mrs. 12 Jan 1900, 60 years
Thompson, Sobeski Richards 7 Nov 1845 12 Jan 1900, Wife
of Wesley L.
Daughter of William & Laura Hungerford Richards
Thompson, Wesley Lafayette 4 Sept 1837 9 Dec 1884
Son of Gordon & Martha Ann
Zeller
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