Stories from the Cemetery

What is an un-obituary?

Kalamazoo's township cemetery served the community as a public burial ground for thirty years. It holds more puzzles than certainties about the people who settled, lived, and worked, to transform the landscape to meet their agricultural and industrial vision. 

While newspapers carried an occasional death notice, long obituaries were rare for everyone but the most famous in the Jacksonian era. Kalamazoo was no exception. Yet, as historical sources, obituaries often obscure lived experience. Aimed to honor the dead and comfort friends and family, obituaries were eulogistic writing that softened the sharp corners of people and lives. The goal of these "un-obituaries" is neither to honor nor defame. It is to individualize broader patterns.

Rev. Seth Porter

This section contains histories about Kalamazoo through people known to be buried in this cemetery. The family of Rev. Seth Porter did, in fact, record one telling of his life. He represented an early arrival of the professional class—in both religion and medicinealong the frontier. Born in 1803 in Skaneateles, New York, he graduated from seminary at age twenty. Yet Porter seemed unable to support his wife, Cynthia Maria Haines, and his children, from religious work alone. Perhaps the spread of revivals in upstate New York that typified the Second Great Awakening, and the growth of the Baptist and Methodist denominations, made for tough times as a Presbyterian minister. Or perhaps his own chronic illness contributed to desire to study medicine.  After more schooling, Porter began practicing medicine in the 1820s in Pennsylvania. He then moved to Kalamazoo in August 1833.  "He was a pioneer in Michigan," his family remembered, "and is said to have built the first frame dwelling house in the village of Kalamazoo. He also continued to preach from time to time, as health permitted." Porter was one of the first Presbyterian ministers in Bronson and never heard the name Kalamazoo.

His health did not permit it. Rev. Porter died in 1834 and became one of the earliest burials in the city cemetery.

The presence of a physical headstone to Rev. Porter, buried after the cemetery survey in the 1880s, may have represented a much later addition. There would have been little marble available until the arrival of the railroad in the 1840s spurred on the marble business.  One explanation is this youngest daughter, Julia, had it placed there. Born in Pennsylvania, she traveled to Kalamazoo as an infant. A quarter century later, after marrying Henry Heydenberk and moving to Allegan, her household took in borders. In 1860 that included two teachers and stone mason.

Un-obituaries from the cemetery 

The following un-obituaries are offered as a sample of individualized stories that have emerged from the old cemetery. There are two organizing themes. Many of the people discussed on the following pages died intestate (without a will). The county probate court thus took a close look at their property, including highly detailed inventories. Several of the other people mentioned here were buried in the old cemetery only to be later removed to Mountain Home or Riverside.

Note on Sources for Rev. Seth Porter: General context for the settlement of Bronson and Kalamazoo comes from Willis Dunbar, Kalamazoo and How it Grew (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 1959).  Family records come from Joseph Whitcomb Porter, A Genealogy of the descendants of Richard Porter, who settled at Weymouth, Massachusetts, 1635, and Allied Families... (Bangor, Me.: Burr and Robinson, 1878). Information on the Heydenburk household comes from 1860 U.S. Census, Allegan, Allegan County, Michigan, population schedule, pg. 35, dwelling 153, family 135, Julia A Heydenburk, Thomas M. Russell; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 24 September 2024); citing NARA microfilm publication M653, roll 535.