IMAGE GALLERY

Governor Nathanial Tallmadge

Power washing an old tombstone

Restoring a long-buried column to its original location

Tallmadge tombstones
Once again standing as sentinals, overseeing the cemetery
Unearthed column once again at home

Moving tombstone base, to re-level the footing

Brigadeer-General Edward Stuyvesant Bragg

Rienzi Cemetery, in Section 18 of the Township of Empire in Fond du Lac county was set off from land owned by Abby Tallmadge, wife of Nathaniel Potter Tallmadge, territorial governor of Wisconsin. The arrival of the family in 1844 was soon saddened by the death of the second son, William Davis Tallmadge. He had just graduated from Union College and was about to return to New York to enter a law firm, when he came west to look over the new home. He admired the farm and remarked that when he died he would like to be buried on a certain hill.

Two weeks later he died and was buried on the hill. His stone reads "The first to lie beneath these sacred oaks". Governor and Mrs. Tallmadge then set aside part of their farm that the community might have a public burying ground.