A facelift for the forgotten: Valentine’s first cemetery may see new life
VALENTINE, Neb. - “Where is Boot Hill Cemetery?” That was one of the questions asked by a longtime Valentine resident to a group of Valentine High School students as they presented their plan to restore an abandoned cemetery to the Valentine City Council.
On Thursday night, the council approved high school senior Neeley Cronin’s request to clean up Boot Hill Cemetery—also known as Minnechaduza Cemetery—as a community service project for the school’s government class. The goal? To make the burial site more accessible and preserve the resting place of some of Valentine’s earliest residents.
It gets its name Boot Hill because many of those first buried there were men and women who “died with their boots on.” City Manager Shane Siewert said he doesn’t know how many people were buried out there from 1883 to 1902, but some historical data shows around 40 bodies remain.
“Some of the bodies only have posts,” said Siewert.
Today, only a few headstones remain, with just one still legible. It reads, “HUBERT ROULEAU DIED June 25, 1887 Aged 91 yrs. May the resurrection find thee on the bosom of thy God”
According to findagrave.com, Rouleau was born in 1796 in Canada and died June 27, 1887 at the City Hotel in Valentine.
“An old western pioneer and mountain man, engaged for the greater part of 40 years in trading with the Indians, Hubert Rouleau was the subject of several of Frederic S. Remington's drawings,” the website writes. “Rouleau was a small man with sparse facial hair who was always laughing and singing. Saraphin, his friend and trapping companion, was a large man with a thick, full beard and a permanent scowl.”
According to old excerpts of Valentine’s first newspaper, The Republican, of early deaths in and near Valentine, many were buried in “the cemetery west of town.” However, after just a few years, burials stopped at that cemetery. By 1905, most burials had moved to Mount Hope Cemetery, and some remains were relocated there.
According to The Republican, the cemetery “or rather it should be said that a tract of land comprising a part of the school section” was first put to use on July 31, 1883 when “Peg Leg” Jack Adams was quickly buried. Adams was found shot to death in his shack on the Minnechaduza creek west of town.
“Then there was Clarence Hand, the bad man from Montana, who arrived in town looking for a man named Keye, with whom he had an account to settle. Keye fired first when they met, and Hand was buried there,” the article reads.
Other burials include Keno, a gambler who was shot, a woman who was said to be accidentally shot, Byron, an old sea captain, and a bartender.
“The grave of Louis Hassed is marked by three pine trees,” reads the article.
The unsettling circumstances surrounding many of the burials at Boot Hill made it an unpopular choice for a final resting place. In 1891, Rev. Samuel Holsclaw, a pioneer preacher and homesteader, established a new cemetery in the southern portion of the school section. However, in a tragic twist, the first person laid to rest there was Holsclaw’s own son, Arthur, who died by suicide. The cemetery saw little use, and Mount Hope Cemetery ultimately became the town’s primary burial ground.
Valentine High School students aren’t the first to recognize the need to restore the city’s original cemetery. Years ago, a local women’s committee took it upon themselves to protect Boot Hill, surrounding it with a permanent fence to prevent further neglect.
“There appear to be thirty-four graves, fifteen of which belong to babies and young children,” an early newspaper article noted. “The graves of so many dead, including innocent children, should not be allowed to be run over by animals and vandals.”
Now, the students are continuing that mission. Their plans include applying for grants to fund improvements such as adding a gate for lawn maintenance, installing sprinklers, and posting a larger sign.
