Article 2 of 11; 702 words
Published on May 7, 2001, Page A1, Kansas City Star, The (MO)
Eternal rest blocks highway construction effort under way to find relatives of those
buried at plot
Source: DONALD BRADLEY The Kansas City Star
If the day were bright and trees didn't block the view, mourners at America Ann
Holloway's burial back in 1858 probably could have seen for miles from the rise near
the farmhouse.Indeed, the Holloways of Jackson County picked a mighty pretty spot for
their family cemetery. How was this family - which probably farmed with mules - to know
that almost a century and a half later, huge earth-moving machines would come plowing
through its final resting place to make room for a new highway? State Click here for
complete article
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Another burial plot could lie in path of new Missouri 150
By DONALD BRADLEY - The Kansas City Star Date: 05/14/01 22:15
William Holloway didn't know his pioneer relatives, the ones who came from Kentucky in
the 1840s to settle in Missouri. But Holloway soon could attend those ancestors'
burials. Reburials, actually. A highway construction crew unexpectedly unearthed the
Holloway family cemetery, which lay in the path of the new Missouri 150 between Holmes
Road and U.S. 71 on Kansas City's southern edge. Officials with the Missouri
Department of Transportation have been eager to find Holloway heirs to help with the
exhumation and relocation of the nine graves. The state is paying all reburial costs, but
having relatives to speak for the deceased can hasten the process, allowing the $13.6
million highway project to get back on track. Other heirs also have been found.
That's good news for state officials because they want as many names on a petition as
possible when they file in Jackson County Circuit Court to move the graves. They hope to
file those papers within days. But now those officials !
have another worry. After a story in The Kansas City Star last week, genealogists and
historians deluged officials with information about the Holloway family tree. They gave
names and dates and even told of a Holloway link to Daniel Boone. "We sorted through
all of them," said John Cave, attorney for the transportation department. But a few
callers offered another kind of tip: Construction workers may run into another unplatted
family plot as the highway project works its way east. "We know that's a
possibility," transportation department spokesman Steve Porter said Thursday. The
problem is that old family cemeteries, particularly those dating to before the Civil War,
were seldom recorded. Thus, they were not identified when state officials planned the new
route for Missouri 150. Callers to The Star suggested the other cemetery -- if there is
one -- may be that of the Keeney family. Tom Keeney, a historian who lives in Belton,
acknowledged that his ancestors operated a farm !
just east of the Holloway farm. "There may well be a cemetery not far from
there," Keeney said. First, though, the Holloways. William Holloway, who lives in
Terrace Park, Ohio, is the great-great-grandson of John C. Holloway, the family patriarch
who loaded his family in a horse-drawn wagon and moved west. Records show that John C.
Holloway acquired the property, either through purchase or homestead agreement, in 1848
and that several generations of his family farmed the land through the 1880s. Porter said
some of the family eventually moved to Utah and Oregon, but many stayed in Missouri. The
first headstone discovered at the site by construction workers was that of America Ann
Holloway, who was the wife of John Holloway's son, Isaac. She died in 1858. State
archaeologists later discovered what they believe are eight other graves. "It's
too early to know what is going to be done," William Holloway said Thursday from his
home in Ohio. He said he had no knowledge of his famil!
y that far back and referred questions to Jay Roberts of Harrisonville. Roberts described
himself as a "shirt-tail relative" of the Holloways, meaning he is related by
marriage rather than blood. He's also a genealogist who has traced the Holloway family
tree from the time John Holloway left Kentucky, and he has located several direct
descendants of the pioneer. State officials were glad to get the help. But they won't
like what Roberts has to say about that missing Keeney cemetery: "It might be in the
direct path of that highway, and they could run right into it." To reach Donald
Bradley, call (816) 234-7810 or send e-mail to dbradley(a)kcstar.com