Trying to keep with the Halloween week theme, I was trying to find some other "haunted" places up north. I found a couple of interesting tidbits on the little graveyard in front of the Mall Formerly Known As Metro North. The cemetery gets a mention on some sites that sometimes apparitions appear. I figured since I found it on the net, it must be true, correct?
Turns out that little cemetery is known as the Gash Cemetery and is easily seen just east of the Red Lobster™.
While I was trying to figure out what "haunting" happens here, I found this nice summary article by Darrell James which led me to some other links. Darrell stated that:
"The last burial in the Gash Cemetery was around 1965 when the neighboring property was acquired by developer Sherman Dreiseszun, although Metro North did not open till 1976."
That isn't that long ago for a cemetery that was founded when the area was settled in the early 1800's. That article led me to a great article by by Christine Clardy Reeber titled the "History of Gashland" which has a lot of background on the Gash's. What really caught my attention was this tidbit:
"A railroad was opened from Quincy, Illinois to Kansas City, Missouri. The iron horse was taking the place of the live horse. For many years there had been a post office at Barry on the Santa Fe Trail. After the railroad was set up, the mail was delivered to Barry Station and carried by horse to the Barry Post Office. Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter gave ground for a station on which a depot was built. This ground was given with the understanding that the station be called Gashland in memory of the Gash family. The post office at Barry was then moved to Gashland."
The 1940 USGS map shows where the old railroad passed southwest of Barry Road and North Oak and how the mail would have been sent via horse to the original Barry post office at Platte Purchase.
The old railroad bed has been paved over and destroyed but the property lines and layout of the buildings near Oak and Barry still reflect where the railroad would have been. I tried showing it using a blue dashed line.
Part of the old embankment is still visible if you take the back way on NE 85th Street to get from Metro North over to North Oak. Look near the Storage One self-storage place and the embankment is 6-10' tall.
There also is some more information on Joseph Gash and Daniel Carpenter on Rootsweb.com which has a page for the cemetery.
Nice work on spotting the old embankment! Check your fb inbox. Thanks, Joe G
Posted by: Zjoego | 10/31/2012 at 03:15 PM