
Chimney Rock Cemetery

by Jon Burch Photography
Title
Chimney Rock Cemetery
Artist
Jon Burch Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photography
Description
The Chimney Rock Cemetery near Bayard, Nebraska preserves graveside markers from the massive western emigrant movement and a close-up of 19th century pioneers. Cholera, prevalent in the middle 19th century, killed more emigrants than any other type accident or disease. Across the road from the Chimney Rock Historic Site is the small cemetery, holding a few of the graves of those that died along the trail. All too often, pioneers did not receive a proper burial.
Their route west was arduous and contained many dangers, the number of deaths on the trail is not known with any precision and we only have wildly varying estimates. Estimating deaths on the trail is difficult because of the common practice of burying people in unmarked graves intentionally disguised to avoid being dug up by animals or robbers. Graves were often put in the middle of the trail and then run over by livestock to make them difficult to find. Disease was the main killer, cholera killed up to 3 percent of the travelers in the epidemic years from 1849 to 1855.
The Chimney Rock Cemetery graves are marked and still visible. Those buried along various roads are less so…
Some digital effects were applied to the original image after the photograph was made. No electrons were harmed during the transition. Your finished photograph will not contain the Fine Art America watermark.
Image copyright 2021 Jon Burch Photography.
Uploaded
June 13th, 2021
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