Finding Pioneer Cemeteries in Winter Quarters

Several noted historians will discuss pioneers who lived in Winter Quarters, Nebraska, and the surrounding Iowa settlements at the upcoming "A Prairie Pioneer Legacy: A Family History Conference."

The focus will be on the period of 1846-1853 and the genealogical research for those pioneers. The conference will be at the Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters, 3215 State Street in Omaha, on October 29 from 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Among the speakers will be local historian Bob Sharp.Sharp's specialty is rather unusual-he looks for Mormon pioneer cemeteries.

Bob and his wife, Martha, are members of the Historical Pioneer Research Group, which is sponsoring the conference, and have been among those responsible for finding more than 100 early settlements in the Middle Missouri Valley belonging to the early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In each of those settlements people were born, got married and died. To find out more about them, Bob Sharp has been hunting for the graves of those who died to help piece together the puzzle of those family histories.

As the cemetery specialist for the Historic Pioneer Research Group Inc, Sharp directs field work using ground penetrating radar and has found several cemetery sites. One of his recent finds was the gravesite of the Abel Galland family in the community of Falland's Grove.

Galland, a veteran of the War of 1812, founded this small settlement in 1848, the first in Shelby County. He found a place where honey was produced in large amounts. He became a successful merchant selling honey to California gold seekers and other pioneers passing through. His large farm included acres of black walnut, a hard wood that was highly valued and sought after for railroad ties and rifle stocks.

It was purely by chance that sharp found the graves of Galland and his family. He was vititing the site of the church Abel had built, and a woman also visiting the site mentioned she had a journal of a family member married in that church. When he read her account he noted the young newlyweds left the church walking "by the graves." Sharp then used ground penetrating radar to find the Galland family.

Members of the Historical Pioneer Research Group, Western Iowa Pioneer Cemetery Association and the Harrison County Genealogical Society along with two Scout troops worked to build a 100 foot brick walkway from a monument at the site where early LDS pioneers built meetinghouses. Behind that was the Galland's Grove Cemetery where Abel and his wife and cildren are buried.

Sharp will have many such finds to share at the Family History Conference. It is free and open to the public. Other speaker include noted pioneer historians Susan Easton Black from brigham Young University, William Harley who has retired from BYU, Mormon Battalion Trek expert Kevin Henson from Michigan, and a host of local historians and genealogist who can help provide answers about family history.