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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 1880’s. 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 1980’s and early 1990’s 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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