Cemeteries aren’t just resting places for the deceased. In small towns, they’re reservoirs of local history.
Buried there are folks whose names adorn buildings, street signs and monuments.
Buried there are people who helped build the community through bricks, deeds and ideas.
The Northeast Oakland Historical Society (NEOHS) is inviting folks to learn more about Oxford’s rich history by taking a stroll through the township cemetery on the north side of W. Burdick St.
On Saturday, Sept. 8, the society will conduct its second annual walking tour there from 1-4 p.m.
Tickets are $15 each.
This year’s theme is “Stories of Old Oxford: Business Pioneers” and will highlight the lives of the town’s most prominent businessmen during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
“A lot of them are rags-to-riches stories,” said Jim Lehtola, the tour’s organizer. “They’re the American story.” Lehtola began researching Oxford’s cemetery and its occupants in 2016.
Last year’s tour featured the lives and achievements of Oxford’s 19th-century settlers. It was quite popular as 63 hearty souls braved the rain and wind to take the tour.
“We added two extra tours this year because as bad as the weather was last year, we pretty much sold out,” Lehtola said. “We got really, really good feedback. (One of the participants said) they learned more about Oxford in one hour than they had in their entire life living here.”
Featured on this year’s tour will be the Tunstead brothers (William and Charles), Peter Bouckart, Eber Denison, William Brokenshaw, Charles Leroy Randall, Andrew Peleg (A.P.) Glaspie, Clarence Crawford and a father-son team of local doctors, Watts and John W. Bachelor.
Lehtola enjoys the stories about the self-made men, the ones who achieved success by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.
A great example of this is William Tunstead (1840-1924).
“He came to Oxford (in 1863) as a tinsmith working for somebody else and ended up becoming one of the most prominent businessmen in town,” Lehtola said.
Tunstead saved his money and bought the tinsmith’s shop where he worked, then expanded by selling hardware and farm implements. He also went into real estate, purchasing old buildings and constructing new ones in town.
“He did real well for himself,” Lehtola said.
Tunstead helped organize Oxford Savings Bank in 1884 and went on to serve as its president. For a while, the bank was located above his hardware store in the building he owned.
Tunstead also helped establish the electric railway in Oxford, which started serving folks in June 1900.
“For 25 cents, you could go just about anywhere in southeastern Michigan from Oxford,” Lehtola said.
Lehtola also likes the story of Drs. Watts and John W. Bachelor.
“They went through a lot of adversity,” he said.
Watts came to Oxford in 1882 and began practicing medicine in the Village of Oakwood. His practice and living quarters there were destroyed by a tornado – or cyclone, as it was called back then – in 1896.
John, who was born in 1875 and orphaned at age 4, was placed on a special train with other parentless youth in New England and sent west in hopes of being adopted. He found loving parents in Watts and his wife, Essie.
John was so full of admiration and respect for his father, that eventually, he, too, became a medical doctor.
The father and son practiced medicine together for a number of years.The father died in November 1907 while being cared for by his son.
John went on to voluntarily enlist in the U.S. Army during World War I and helped treat soldiers infected with Spanish influenza in Kansas and Georgia. He survived the influenza pandemic of 1918-19, which killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people worldwide.
Those taking part in the walking tour will gather behind the Northeast Oakland Historical Museum, located at the northwest corner of Washington (M-24) and Burdick streets in downtown Oxford. From there, they will be transported to the cemetery.
“Since parking is limited here at the cemetery, we’ll have a shuttle bus for each group,” Lehtola said.
Tours will leave for the cemetery every 30 minutes beginning at 1 p.m. The last tour will commence at 4 p.m.
Each tour will last about an hour.
Rain or shine, the tours will go on and there will be a lot of walking on uneven ground. Folks are encouraged to be prepared and dress appropriately.
Lehtola is hoping the weather will be better this year given the tour is taking place about a month earlier than last year.
“The cemetery’s beautiful in the fall, but the weather is just so unpredictable,” he said.
Tickets for the tour can be purchased at the museum (1 N. Washington St.), which is open on Thursdays and Saturdays from 1-4 p.m. For more information, please call the museum at (248) 628-8413.