Jo Lundeen writes…
Cliff Lundeen and Roy Grundy took a field trip to Boardman Cemetery!
You do know that…
“Horace Boardman, a wealthy farmer from Naperville, IL founded Traverse City in 1847.” A little piece of trivia that I readily relay when we find a willing listener in TC. He did, of course, come home here and marry and lived to 61 before being buried near Royce Rd. Actually, I think he was a young rebel-rouser, frequently drunk and two other guys took over the building of the town! Fun stuff!! …
The cemetery has been just off Royce Rd, technically in Bolingbrook, since 1832. The monuments are very old and worn. You can hardly read most of them. The Royce family is there, so is Paxon family and of course, Boardman’s. I first saw it probably 20 years ago and haven’t been back. It is now very nicely fixed up and kept up by groups from Bolingbrook. It’s in the middle of a subdivision on Paxon Rd just east of the Jesus Lives Church. …
When Naperville Central played Traverse City in football in 1996, I tried to get the SUN to do something with this information, but being the new era, they didn’t. Soooo …
I just pass the information on to anyone who wants to hear it. A wonderful connection for us. Somehow, the old guys got talking about it this morning and Roy knew about it, so off they went to find it again. They had to get a Naperville Township guy to come open it for them. He said they have a map of all the buried at the Township office. There is a Boardman River and Boardman Lake in Traverse City and he is regarded as their founding father, but Hannah and Lay actually came in and built the town. Horace went up there for the lumber that that area was producing at the time. They floated it down the lake to Illinois. Hence, his sawmill, I guess.
