Lake Protestant Cemetery

Lake Protestant Cemetery. . , The Lake Protestant Cemetery, located at 3119 E. Norwich Avenue, was incorporated in 1855. No records have been found that indicate the cemetery was ever connected to a church. A board of trustees, elected by the cemetery plot owners, was responsible for the cemetery operation and maintenance., A number of early Town of Lake settlers are buried here. Most burials are from the 1880s to the 1910s, with 40 percent being children under the age of ten. The earliest burial was 1846 and the most recent in 1951. By the 1920s, the cemetery was pretty much abandoned and terribly overgrown. A number of graves were moved to newly established cemeteries in the area., In 1986, the City of St. Francis took over the cemetery when a Wisconsin statute required municipalities take over and maintain abandoned cemeteries. There are no cemetery records. Burial information was found in local church records, obituaries, newspaper articles, deed records, death certificates, and family trees from online genealogical sites., The St. Francis Historical Society continues to raise money to restore gravestones, replace missing stones, and maintain the flowerbeds., Jared Thompson was born in Connecticut in 1802. He arrived in Milwaukee and purchased 160 acres in Town of Lake. The cemetery is on his land. It was known as Thompson Cemetery until it was incorporated under Wisconsin law in 1855. Jared's son William, a Civil War veteran, is buried near him, as is Jared's mother Suzanna, and wife, Francis, Zebedee Packard - Lot 5 , Zebedee was born in Jericho, Vermont, in 1789. His father, Samuel, fought in the Revolutionary War and Zebedee fought in the War of 18 12. Zebedee died in 1855 at age 66 of typhoid fever. His grave marker is at the north end of the cemetery, and his son John, who died at age 2 in 1846, is buried nearby. John's burial is the first recorded burial in the cemetery. Zebedee's son Daniel is buried in a lot nearby. Packard Avenue is named for Daniel., Elijah and Zebiah Estes - Lot 19 , Elijah was born in Burke County, North Carolina, in 1814 on the family plantation. In 1833, at the age of 19, he traveled to the Midwest by horseback and then by foot, to Chicago. In 1835, after a 3-day journey by foot, he arrived in Milwaukee staking a claim to 160 acres of farmland in Town of Lake. Presently, this is the site of South Shore Park in Milwaukee's Bay View neighborhood. Estes returned to Chicago and married Zebiah Wentworth, and they moved to Estes' claim. The tall Estes monument marks Elijah and Zebiah's grave, as well as three of their children.