Samuel Elliott was born in Norway in 1840 and came to the United States as a baby. At the young age of 21, he enlisted with Company D Second Wisconsin Regiment for three years, and then re-enlisted to serve through the end of the Civil War.
Elliott fought for the Union at Gettysburg, Bull Run and Fredericksburg – and was wounded nine times. He was on Guard Duty in Washington, D.C. the night President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
He and his wife Betsy adopted three children, and were the first to homestead in De Groat Township in Ramsey County, North Dakota. It’s estimated that several hundred Civil War veterans are buried in North Dakota – but Elliott is the only one in Chain Lake Cemetery.
The story of Samuel Elliott might intrigue tombstone tourists – but if you’re hoping to visit his grave, and the 150 odd others in Chain Lake Cemetery, you should probably get in line behind the people who’ve been trying to get there for years.
“We have the record-keeping work to keep it a legal entity, so we still do that. When the church closed in 1990, they created the Cemetery Association. And it continued on, and still does continue. Up until the flooding started, they kept it mowed and maintained, hired people to mow, hired people to do weeds. We had roads to get to it, and now… we can’t get to it on any roads because they’ve been washed away by Devils Lake flooding.”
This is Karen Hausmann. She’s one of four members of the Chain Lake Cemetery Association. The others are Garland Hoistad, Curtis Thorpe, and Marjorie Anderson. They say the cemetery is dry, but has not been reachable by car since 2010. And that’s not only made visits to the cemetery complicated, but it’s also changed imminent burial plans.
“Well, some of us couldn’t wait. Marjie couldn’t wait for her husband to be buried there. So he’s in Mandan at the military cemetery,” Hausman says.
“Yeah, and since he’s in the military one, I’ll go there. I’d like to be in Chain Lake. But it’s too late,” adds Anderson.
Thorpe speaks up. “Well the biggest share of my relatives are buried over there, and most of all the neighbors around were buried there. There’s some that didn’t get to be buried there… but would have liked to have been. I guess I’d still like to be there, but…”
If you’ve got the right vehicle, you might be able to get there. Hausmann says when the lake level dipped a bit in 2021, they were able to access it with farm equipment.
“Grass, weeds, dead trees. Some of the trees that didn’t die were just growing wherever they want. Fence is still there, the outhouse is still there. The graves are still standing, I can find my family because I knew where they were. It’s not destroyed. But it does need to be cleaned up… to be made respectable again.”
To tell the story of Devils Lake flooding over the years, you can’t omit the suffering – which has touched every part of the region. The residential neighborhoods around the water, the Indigenous population at Spirit Lake Reservation, and the land and business owners all have their own stories to tell. For De Groat Township, it’s been a story of frustration, isolation, and resignation. Many of these residents were descended from original homesteaders, and were pushed out one by one as the lake continued to rise.
“Try to walk a day in our shoes,” Hoistad says. “You wake up one day, your income is gone. Your livelihood. Everything is gone, you can’t even get to where your ancestors were buried. People can’t even fathom that… they can’t realize it.”
“I know my family are really upset about it,” Anderson says. “They think about it, that land was homesteaded by their great-grandpa. There’s nothing they can do about it, and they’re hoping we can do something about it.”
Hausmann is resigned. “We’re pretty powerless, really. I have no trust in our government, our state government.”
While we all might have our own ideas of what our senses of “home” might be, in rural America the roots go deeper than many can understand. Your community and neighbors were not only who you lived around, but also went to church with, did business with, and raised your families with. They were people you celebrated and mourned with. And for many of these rural township people, they’re who they want to be buried next to.
Marjorie Anderson is 101 years old, and says what troubles her most is the idea of her friends and family being forgotten.
“When we can’t get out to the cemetery… and they’re not old people, but they’re old to us because they’ve been there a long time. And I just feel like they’re being forgotten if we can’t get there. I feel bad about that because I want them to be remembered. Oh… it would be so good if we could get out there again. I hope I can get out there again in my lifetime… but I’m not sure.”
On my most recent visit to Devils Lake, I parked on a rural road and turned off my car so I could take in the peaceful silence of the prairie. It’s a perfect spot to rest for eternity. But as I listened that day, I didn’t just hear that peaceful silence. I also heard loneliness, abandonment and emptiness. I heard a quiet despair.
Our small towns may be getting smaller, but knowing you’ll rest with your loved ones in the home you cherished is a beautiful thing to cling to. The descendants of homesteaders in De Groat Township cling to their memories, and an uncertain hope for a future yet to come.
