Show ' i Ctarai Mews a - - - f s Volunteer Layne Warther uncovers a skeleton at the Salt Lake City dig site Clyde in Mueller Search for cemetery finally successfu By JOHN DeVILBlSS Eaminef re''On ed'tof Standa'd Ogdcn resident Myrene Rich Brewer knew her was buried somewhere in Salt Lake City but she did not know where For a while it looked like she'd never know Last summer construction crews were closing in fast on Block 49 just around the corner southwestern of the Salt Palace to build a apartment complex A history of the area commissioned by the Salt Lake City Agency Redevelopment showed evidence that an old pioneer cemetery was supposed to be somewhere on the construction site But efforts to find it by archaeologists a year before this turned up nothing It was assumed that if there was such a cemetery it had slowly been destroyed over the years Construction went on as planned For Salt Lake City pharmacist and genealogy buff Robert Foss Hansen this was a time of frustration He too had a connection with the Ogden woman's Nancy O'Neil Rich She was the grandmother wife She of his was also the motivating factor for finding this graveyard After more than a year of research through old diaries and city records he was sure she was buried somewhere on Salt Lake City Block 49 It was discouraging when archaeologists during the summer of 1985 were unable to find anything It appeared his search for Nancy O'Neil Rich would be in vain he said Brewer said Nancy O'Neil Rich her husband Joseph their daughter Minerva and their only son Charles joined the Mormon Church on April I 1832 while they were living in the sparsely settled region of Tazwell County near Peoria III They eventually joined other church members in Nauvoo before making their way west after the death of Joseph Smith Her son Charles who was in his 20s when he was baptized in the Mormon Church soon became a missionary and an early defender of the faith He became a stalwart leader in the church and eventually an apostle Among his many accomhe helped to plishments colonie the area around Bear Lake Rich his name County today bears When Nancy O'Neil Rich crossed the Great Plains with her family and other Mormon pioneers she was in her 60s She was also one of the first of the Mormons to take that arduous journey Brewer said Her rugged persistence paid off but it also took its toll Just three days after she arrived on Oct 2 1847 she died from pneumonia and exposure "I think she was probably just warn out" Brewer said "To she was my understanding quite a delicate woman" Brewer said her death earned her the distinction of being the first white woman to die in the Salt Lake Valley This indicates that the cemetery she was buried in was also one of the first in the valley In time however the city grew up around the old cemetery and new cemeteries were established Hansen said he believes the graveyard could have once contained as many as 50 bodies He speculates many of those bodies have since been reintcrred in cemeteries elsewhere Because it was no longer used as a cemetery it was eventually covered over and its location forgotten — until last summer Hope was revived when early last summer construction crews happened upon some bones while excavating for a parking garage less than 100 feet from where archaeologists had previously stopped dipping said Asa S Niclson Brigham Young University director of the office of public archaeology See DIG on Page 7 Operation under way to restore steeplePage 3 "IT" |