LeRoy Telmer

LeRoy Telmer

      . From the May 2006 issue of The Crackerbarrel

Back Home Again - missing marker

By Richard Bennett, charter member
     The last issue of the Crackerbarrel contained a nice article on the Black Hawk War.   Where Gen. Scott crossed the Fox River is now known as Vasa Park and the surrounding area is just south of S. Elgin.
     In 1832, two of Gen Scott's men died and were buried at that site.   About 1960, Howard Gusler, a well known Elgin resident and collector of Elginiana, and I searched for the graves of those two men.   I often drove him around to different places as Howard did not drive himself.   I found the stone which revealed the names of the two men, one being Leroy Telmer and the other Frank ?, the last name was so weathered I could not read it.   I called to Howard and he came running over and took photos of the stone.   It was about 20 inches round and was located right under a barbed wire fence in the weeds and trees.
     About 15 years ago I searched the area again and could not locate the stone with the names on it.   The area had been cleaned up and a new road ran thru the area and the large rock with an arrow pointing to the direction which once stood near the river facing the railroad tracks had been moved to the burial site but the rock with the names could not be found