Bay City Times
July 29, 1951

FORGOTTEN CITY OF THE DEAD
Disposing of Abandoned St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery Poses Problem

    A weather beaten headstone lies toppled to the ground, half-covered by thick underbrush.
    Field mice scurry over the broken pieces of another tombstone nearby.  Small snakes rustle away through matted bushes at the sound of a footstep. 
    A fallen tree almost hides another headstone, making it difficult to read the one word "Mother", inscribed
on its side.   And everywhere hordes of mosquitoes rise from the rank undergrown to challenge the infrequent visitor.

    This is indeed a forgotten city of the dead, abandoned over the years by those preoccupied with the problems of the living.
    You will find this desolate tract on State street, stretching two blocks between Elm and Smith streets.  A low crumbling wall of cement blocks has spilled down in places.   Its eastern edge is an almost impenetrable jungle of bushes whose interlacing branches push almost 15 feet from the ground.
    Here is all that remains of the old St. Joseph cemetery.  Here lie the bones of some of the city's first pioneers, who came here long before sawmills sprouted on the river's edge.

    Little is recorded of the origins and growth of the cemetery, and even nowlittle is known of how it was allowed to be gradually abandoned and fall into its present condition. 
    It is mentioned briefly in a city directory of 1905, which cites it was under control of a Catholic cemetery board.  The directory lists Frank X. Thibault as the sexton.
    But diocesan records show nothing of the cemetery plots and who was buried underneath the soil now overgrown with brush.  No parish in Bay City lays claim to it.
    The headstones tell their own story.  Here are the names of Trombley, Rose, Tovatt, Curry, LaRoche, Robidioux, Compau, Bertet, Truedell, Reno, Bellor, Guinon, Charlebois, Londau, Frazor and others.

    They died between the years 1850 and 1925.  Some were infants when death struck, others only young women.  But the headstone for Sophia Frazor, for instance, carries the legend 1829 - 1923.
    The Trombley family plot remains the most impressive, as begets the descendants of the old Indian trader pioneer who gave of its' large land holdings to provide the cemetery.  The remains of Joseph Trombley, who founded Banks in 1851, are among those buried here.
    The Trombley plot includes a well-preserved monument tower some 15 feet high, surmounted with a cross, and bearing on its four faces the names of a long line of Trombleys buried underneath.  Names like Richard, Sophie, Joseph, Louis, Katie, Cassie, Theodore, Ellen.

    But like other plots, thick weeds and heavy brush are enmeshing it.  They sprout even from between the cracks where the main shaft meets the basestone.
    Some bodies have already been removed.  Low depressions in the ground show where a coffin has been taken and the ground thrown back.  But throughout the two-block tract the visitor will stumble over other broken, overturned headstones, and come across small markers where the pioneers still lie underneath.
    One of the most enigmatic is a small stone, almost hidden by leaves, which states only: "Jacob Geniack, Co. I., I Mich. Inf."
    Perhaps the most poignant is the landmark tombstone of the LaRoche Family, a nine foot high stone facisimile of a tree trunk.  Around its base are the broken fragments of family markers, and a few stones where inscriptions can still be made out.

    It has been almost 25 years since anyone was buried here, and Cath9olic diocesan authorities claim they have no intention of continuing it as a burial plot.  Some say the ground was never consecrated as became the custom in later days.
    One high-ranking diocesan official at Saginaw last week indicated the city should investigate the possibility of taking over the property as a park or recreational area.   He hinted the diocese would be interested in transferring title, if remaining bodies were removed to other cemeteries.
    In the meantime, however, the abandoned city of the dead slumbers on in the shadows of the tower of the Visitation church, passed each day by hundreds of unnoticing motorists, and surrounded by neighbors accustomed to its quiet desolation.
    Its silence is broken only by the sound of traffic, or by the children who play around the graves and who have worn narrow footpaths through its undergrowth.
    The dead sleep on here, untroubled by the fact that they are ignored and forgotten.

Photo of the Trombley headstone.
Please click on the thumbnail picture to enlarge.