A great deal of progress has been made in the effort to create the Freedom & Remembrance Memorial in south Peoria, a project that aims to commemorate and honor the more than 2,600 Peorians buried at the former Moffatt Cemetery. This project was described here at “From the History Room” in a blog post in August 2021.
The most visible signs of that progress are the three Illinois State Historical Markers that were the center of attention at a special “unveiling” event hosted this week by the Peoria Riverfront Museum, held on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 15. Project core team member Robert Hoffer of the Peoria Historical Society was the chief speaker at the event.
In addition, Joseph Hutchinson, another core team member, who belongs to the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, spoke about the Civil War veterans buried at Moffatt Cemetery. Also addressing the attendees was Charles Stanley, Illinois State Historical Society board member and chairman of the Society’s Historical Marking Committee, who read a message from the New York-based Pomeroy Foundation, a major donor toward two of the project’s three markers.
The first marker to be completed, commemorating the 52 Union Civil War veterans buried at Moffatt Cemetery, was unveiled July 28 at the Riverfront Museum as part of an exhibit on Moffatt and the planned Freedom & Remembrance Memorial. One of those veterans was Pvt. Nathan Ashby of Pekin, who was present at the first Juneteenth in Galveston, Texas, 19 June 1865.
More recently, the other two historical markers were completed and brought to Peoria. One of the markers tells the history of Moffatt Cemetery, from its origins in the mid-1800s as a family burying ground of Peoria pioneer Aquilla Moffatt, through its closing in 1905, down to the razing and rezoning of the cemetery in the 1950s. When the cemetery was razed, it was reported that the burials at Moffatt had been relocated, but recent research has found that only a small number of burials were moved. The majority of the 2,600-plus burials remain at the site, paved and built over.
Among those burials still at the site would be Nance Legins-Costley (1813-1892), known to history as the first African-American to secure freedom with the aid of Abraham Lincoln. Her life story is the subject of a book and several papers and articles written by project core team member Carl Adams. Costley had indefatigably insisted on her freedom through a series of Illinois lawsuits, and Lincoln’s legal arguments in the landmark 1841 Illinois Supreme Court case of Bailey v. Cromwell at last obtained the courts’ recognition that Costley had been right all along. In April of 1892, she was buried in Moffatt Cemetery, where her late husband Benjamin Costley had been buried in 1883 and their son Leander Costley was buried in 1886.
At Tuesday’s event, Hoffer said the United Union of Roofers Local #69 is deeding land at the corner of South Adams and Griswold for the site of the Freedom and Remembrance Memorial, which will be owned by the City of Peoria. Hoffer also acknowledged and thanked the other organizations that are involved in and support the project, which include, among others, the Peoria Park District, the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War, the Abraham Lincoln Association, the Peoria Public Library, and the Pekin Public Library.
Title transfer of the land for the memorial should be completed in the near future, after which the markers and a lighted flag pole will be installed. A formal dedication ceremony of the memorial is being planned for the Spring of 2023.
The following photos are provided courtesy of the Freedom & Remembrance Memorial project:
