The Bazil Phelps Family

 

Well, we will call this part two of the Bazil Phelps saga. 

This is a family account of the Phelps family that came into Grand Traverse County from Pennsylvania in and around 1866.

The Bazil Phelps Family
Bazil Phelps was one of three sons born to Benjamin Phelps & Priscilla Reynolds Wheat, in Prince George’s County, Maryland. He was baptized there March 31, 1799. When his father died around 1807, his mother moved with her sons Robert, Levi and Bazil Phelps and Thomas Wheat to Steuben County, New York following her oldest grown son Jonathon Wheat.

Bazil met Phebe Johnson, daughter of Thomas and Abigail Johnson, in New York where she was born. They married and moved to Harrison Township in Potter County Pennsylvania soon after, and Bazil’s brothers Robert and Levi followed them there. Nine children were born to Bazil and Phebe in Harrison Township, six of them survived to adulthood;

Priscilla, Elisha, Ruth Ann, Sarah Ann, Thomas and Emily.

Most of them came with Bazil and Phebe to Grand Traverse County in 1866 or soon after.

Priscilla Phelps was born in Pennsylvania in 1826. She married Henry Youker and they had four children born in Harrison before moving to Grand Traverse in 1866;
Catherine, Ann Eliza, John George and Phebe Ann; Catherine married John Bradshaw in Grand Traverse; Ann Eliza married Lavern O. Sackett, and they moved to Grand Traverse in 1866. John George married in Grand Traverse. Phebe Ann was killed by a falling tree in Benzie in 1869 at 11 years old. All are buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery except John who is buried in Maple Grove in Grawn.
 
Elisha Phelps was born about 1830 in Pennsylvania. He married Eliza Jane Carr and they followed Bazil and Phebe to Grand Traverse in 1866. Elisha was a veteran of the Civil War. He died June 2, 1866, in Grand Traverse County before he could secure a Homestead Act claim. We believe Elisha was buried on the farm of Bazil Phelps, now known as Mt. Hope Cemetery. Eliza Jane remarried Jonas Youker a year later.
 
Ruth Ann Phelps was born in May of 1835 in Pennsylvania; she married Alfred Ellis c1851 in Harrison Township. Ruth and Alfred had nine children; 

Levi, Mary Almira, Eliza who died young, Loren and Harrison were all born in Pennsylvania, Charles, Emily and Emery were born in Iowa and their last child Phebe was born in April of 1874 in Grand Traverse County.  

Ruth Ann died a few months later in October of 1874 and Alfred was overwhelmed with raising the children alone. Most were sent to live with relatives. Both Levi and Mary Almira married soon after their mother’s death. Phebe moved in with her aunt and uncle, Sarah and Harrison Johnson. Emily moved in with aunt and uncle, Priscilla and Henry Youker and her twin brother Emery lived with his sister Mary Almira and her new husband Joseph Hessler. Charles was taken in by John Bradshaw and wife Catherine (Youker) and Harrison stayed with his father. Loren is still unaccounted for in that short time frame but remained in the area all of his life and is believed to be buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery along with his parents Ruth Ann and Alfred.
 
Sarah Ann Phelps was born May 9, 1837, in Pennsylvania and married Harrison Johnson, a Civil War Veteran. They lived in New York and had two sons, Calvin Amos and Thomas Benjamin before moving to Grand Traverse County. Another son Stacy Johnson was born in Grand Traverse in 1871 and died in 1879 and is buried in Mt. Hope with his parents.
 
Thomas Phelps was born in and died in Harrison, Potter County Pennsylvania. He married Sarah Louisa Johnson, and they had three sons, Benjamin, William and Franklin. Thomas died August 30, 1870, at age 30 in Potter County, Pennsylvania. Sarah Louisa moved her family to the Grand Traverse region soon after. She married William Armstrong in Leelanau County in 1872. Sarah died in 1909 in Leelanau and William Armstrong in 1914 in Traverse City. The Phelps boys remained in the area.
 
Emily Phelps, the youngest daughter of Bazil and Phebe Phelps was born in Harrison November 9, 1841. She died in Harrison on November 24, 1861, at 20 years of age and is buried in White’s Corners Cemetery along with her brother Thomas in Potter County Pennsylvania.
 

 

 

The Mysterious Mount Hope Cemetery

Never have I been so intrigued with a cemetery.

Never have I been so enamoured with a cemetery.

It all started with researching my father's line, it brought me here to find the Youker's. The father, John George Youker was buried here, and so many of his descendants were too. 

Then--the discovery of a possible PATRIOT, John George's father, George Youker might be buried here! A saga ensued. The Township had an 'index card' as a record of burial for our patriot. We contacted the township, consulted any records we could find, but it was never enough to get our Patriot a V.A. stone here. The more we pressed on, the less help we had. What is going on here? 

 

Does the cemetery have The Plague?

I paid for a copy of the cemetery database from the Gen Society because doing so from the township was a dead end. I painstakingly went over every-single-grave plot in the original cemetery (as it is called by the township-the newer section surrounds the hill) and verified, double checked with records available to me, newspaper articles, etc. I corrected errors. 

Records are missing. Some burials are not recorded, which is pretty typical for old cemeteries.

Which brings me to this: Youker is not the only family I have buried in this cemetery. It turns out my mother's ancestors are buried here too, and most are not recorded. 

This is so frustrating, but when I did the work on the cemetery, I concluded the location (a pretty good assumption anyway) as to where they are buried. 

This will never be 'officially' acknowledged, unfortunately. 

While I searched this cemetery, I discovered something nobody seemed to know. As it turns out, I am the only one who seems to care...this is the story of Mount Hope:

How Mount Hope Cemetery Began

A Tribute to Bazil Phelps, Early Pioneer

 

Mount Hope Cemetery sits upon the hill off what is now U.S. 31 in Interlochen, Green Lake Township in Grand Traverse County.  Its origin was never really thought about by those of us in the 21^st century, it has just always been there.

In and around 1866 a great migration of ‘our own’ occurred by the people of Potter County, Pennsylvania. They uprooted their lives and began the migration west and settled into Grand Traverse County and nearby Benzie and Leelanau Counties. Bazil Phelps and his immediate family members as well as friends, settled in what would be called in the following year of 1867, Blair Township. Most of the folks settling here were already acquainted in Pennsylvania, so establishing a well knitted community was a natural process. The area was in its infancy in terms of a settlement; it was virtually a wilderness to yet be conquered.

Bazil Phelps secured 160 acres by way of the Homestead Act of 1862 in c1866 and began making that piece of land his family’s home in Section 18, Township 26, Range 12 in Grand Traverse County and on the border of Benzie County. The community grew all around him and his family. 

Shortly after settling in the county, his son Elisha Phelps a married man, died at the age of 36 on June 2^nd, 1866 in Grand Traverse County. It can’t be said with certainty but rather with belief of this writer, that Elisha was buried on Bazil’s farm upon the hill. There was no cemetery established nearby. Bazil, being a devoted Methodist may have wanted his son to be buried on the homestead. Elisha’s land had not yet been established; he and his wife may have been living in Bazil’s home.  His widow, Eliza Jane remarried the following year to Jonas Youker.  

As time went on, neighbors in need of a burial ground were buried in this same location on his property. Family and neighbors continued to be buried in this location. Was it called Mount Hope in these earliest of years? We do not know, but they were buried on Bazil Phelps land for nearly 20 years.

The earliest known burial outside of the Phelps family was Angeline Thomas Pierce in September of 1866. I believe she was buried in the same 'row' as the Phelps family that were never recorded. There is evidence of burials there, but nothing recorded other than listed as 'occupied' on the township map.

In 1874, Bazil sold 80 acres of this land to Harrison Johnson, his son-in-law. In 1877 he sold 10 acres to Judson Audrus. 

Finally in 1880, he sold to Franklin Helm the remaining acreage of 70 acres, except “one fourth of an acre which is in use and is to be in use for burying the dead." Bazil, then aged around 81 years old, lived his remaining years with his daughter Sarah and her husband Harrison Johnson (who were later buried in this cemetery). The burial ground continued to be in Bazil Phelps possession for four more years.

Sometime in 1883, the boundaries changed and a new township was organized called Green Lake. The burial ground was within this new township.

On 22 January 1884, Bazil Phelps signed over the land in which the cemetery was on to the Township Board of Green Lake and their successors in office thereafter. It was officially called Mount Hope Cemetery. 

Bazil Phelps died on 9 July 1889 in Green Lake and is said to be buried in ‘Inland Cemetery’ per his obituary. The Green Lake Township clerk does not see him listed as being buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, there is no stone with his name. 

What a painful tribute to a man who saw to it that other people's loved ones had a final resting place.