Recommending Establishment 5-year Action Plan Historic City Cemetery

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r »y RESOLUTION NO. '� 2-b 3— 0 A RESOLUTION OF THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SOUTH BEND, INDIANA, RECOMMENDING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A 5 -YEAR ACTION PLAN FOR THE REVITALIZATION AND PRESERVATION OF THE HISTORIC CITY CEMETERY the Common Council of the City of South Bend, Indiana, acknowledges that South Bend founders, Alex Coquillard and Lathrop Taylor, donated the land which became South Bend's oldest cemetery - .located just west of the downtown at LaPorte Avenue along the north and its main entrance off Elm Street which is today located just outside and northwest of the West Washington National Register District; and /ems, the Common Council notes that the first recorded burial was Peter Roof, a Revolutionary War veteran in 1831; followed by burials of prominent African - American families such as the Bryants and Powells, with this cemetery being notable for never being segregated; and City Cemetery has grown to be the home to approximately 14,800 final resting places on its 21.36 acres, with the historic and ornate entry gates being erected in 1899; and William G. George, South Bend's first Mayor; James and Mary McKinley, the paternal grandparents of President McKinley who both died of typhoid fever on their 43rd wedding anniversary on August 20, 1847; John Auten, the first solider from St. Joseph County to be killed in the Civil War in 1861; Norman Eddy who was a U.S. Congressman and served as a Colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War who died in 1872; South Bend Police Officer Lewis Keller who was killed in 1898 during a robbery of a store on Washington Street; Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Private Enoch R. Weiss who served in the U.S. Army in Company G, 1St US Cavalry who died in 1917; South Bend Police Officer Howard Wagner who was killed at the age of 29 by John Dillinger's gang during the robbery of downtown Merchants Bank in 1934; and Schuyler Colfax who served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1863 -1869, and served our country as the 17th Vice - President of the United States from 1869 -1873 under President Ulysses S. Grant - are just some of the thousands of individuals buried in this historic City Cemetery along with the many infants who died from teething, consumption, whooping cough, scarlet fever and measles; and the Common Council notes that in 2009, the Historic Preservation Commission of South Bend and St. Joseph County partnered with- the Schuyler Colfax Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) to collaborate together and promote the preservation of City Cemetery, with its Mission Statement "to preserve, protect, share carefully and treat reverently this hallowed and historic site "; and the Common Council acknowledges that on May 1, 2009, a 93 -page copyrighted publication entitled Preservation Assessment of City Cemetery, South Bend, Indiana, also referred to as the Chicora Research Contribution 512, was prepared by Michael Trinkley, PhD and Debi Hacker of