Oak Hill Commemorates 'Unknown' Civil War Soldier On Memorial Day

PALOS PARK, IL — For almost a century, local veterans have met every Memorial Day at historic Oak Hill Cemetery in Palos Park, where the Civil War dead have slept silently for over 160 years. This Monday, May 29, at 10 a.m. veterans, residents, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Palos Historical Society will gather in front of the grave of the unknown Union Army soldier.

Like many of the tiny cemeteries tucked away off the dark, forest roads of Palos Township, Oak Hill is the final resting place for the area’s first European settlers. The cemetery is located on 131st Street, about a block east from Southwest Highway.

“We have several Civil War veterans, the Spanish American War, and World War I and World War II veterans,” said Bob Busch, curator for the Palos Historical Society.

While not as notorious as nearby Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery, Oak Hill comes with its own ghostly lore that warrants a stop on paranormal tours. Oak Hill is built on farmland donated by Sidney Campbell, an early homesteader who set aside a few acres of his farm so neighborhood families would have a place to bury their loved ones. The first burial took place around 1840.

Campbell moved to the area in 1834, most likely arriving with a group of pioneers from upstate New York led by David Paddock, whose family went on to found the Daily Herald.

“Locals called him ‘Blind David,’ supposedly because his eyes were injured when he was blinded by a cannon flash during the Revolutionary War,” Busch said. “Three of his sons married three McClaughry sisters. That was one happy family.”

The historical society hasn’t been able to track down if Blind David was an early settler of Palos Township. Genealogical records document Blind David as moving to Kenosha, Wis., where he became a successful dairy farmer. Many of the Paddocks and McClaughrys moved on to Wisconsin, but the Revolutionary War hero was believed to have been buried in Oak Hill at one time before his grave was moved.

The Mahaffay family plot is located off the cemetery’s small parking lot and responsible for the mix-up involving the unknown Union soldier. Patriarch Samuel Mahaffay was an Irish immigrant and farmer. The Mahaffay clan was among Palos Township’s earliest settlers. In 1862, his 18-year-old son, William, signed up to serve in the Civil War, enlisting in Company F of the 100th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Many men in Company F were from Palos and Orland Townships, Busch said.

Like many soldiers who fought on both sides of the Civil War, William died of measles in 1863 in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Young Pvt. Mahaffay's mother, Betsey, paid $100 to have her son’s body shipped home for burial at Oak Hill. However, when they opened the coffin, it was somebody else’s son who had been shipped from the war front.

“They buried him anyway,” Busch said.

In 2002, Palos Park VFW Post 4861 dedicated a proper monument to the unknown Civil War soldier “in remembrance of all the known and unknown Civil War soldiers buried here.”

Members of the Butcher family are also buried at Oak Hill, but don’t get Busch started on Hermann Butcher, the alleged “Butcher of Palos Park.” As legend has it, Hermann was said to have butchered his apprentices and neighborhood hoboes, selling the meat to his meat-starved neighbors.

When his neighbors found out they were eating soylent green, they decapitated Hermann and buried his head in Indian Hill Cemetery, with his headless body interred in Oak Hill. Supposedly, Hermann roams the woods looking for his head.

“It’s pure b.s.,” Busch said. “They keep saying the gravestone moves closer to [The Center in Palos Park], so he can find his head. As the street widened it got closer to the cemetery.”

There was a Butcher, however, who also joined up with Company F – Joseph – who fought in the Battle of Nashville. He was wounded and died from complications of having his leg amputated.

“If there is any Butcher looking for a body part, it’s Joseph looking for his leg,” Busch said.

The first documented Memorial Day ceremony held at Oak Hill was in 1924. The Palos Historical Society assumed responsibility for organizing it in the 1950s. This year marks the full return of the remembrance ceremony since the pandemic.

“We did a streamed-down ceremony the past few years," Busch said. “Even in 2020, we went and took pictures to keep the continuity.”

Monday’s Memorial Day observance will include Boy Scout Troop 699 presenting colors (as Boys Scouts have done for the past 99 years). The Swallow Cliff Chapter of the Illinois Daughters of the American Revolution will lay a wreath on the grave of the unknown Union soldier, and historical society member Larry Raider will speak on Oak Hill’s historic significance.

The Palos Historical Society meets every Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon at the Palos Park Public Library, 12330 Forest Glen Blvd.