Sessions Settlement Cemetery

730 West 1500 South
Woods Cross, Utah  84087

Click here for:

* Directions to Cemetery
* Facts
* History
* Cemetery Burial Records & photos of Burial Markers

Directions: 

• From the North, take exit 320 (Bountiful - 500 South exit) off I-15 and turn right (west) to 800 West.  At 800 West, turn left (south) and travel to 1500 South.  The cemetery is near the park on the southeast corner of 800 West and 1500 South.
• From the South, take exit 318 (Woods Cross - 2600 South exit) off I-15 and turn left (west) to 800 West.  At 800 West, turn right (north) and travel to 1500 South.  The cemetery is near the park on the southeast corner of 800 West and 1500 South

Facts: 

History:

   MONUMENT ERECTED MAY 26, 1940

  "In the early summer of 1849 a death occurred in Session's Settlement and this plot was selected as a cemetery.  Nearly a score of people, including Pioneers, Indians, and a California emigrant (whose head stone is on opposite side of monument), were buried here.  Later sub-irrigation caused the settlers to locate a new cemetery.  This spot unites in common brotherhood, the Indians, the Mormon Pioneers and other emigrants, who died in the conquering of the West. -- Eutaw Camp."  (Marker Inscription)

THE OLD CEMETERY

    In the summer of 1849, Charles Peter Hogan, the eighteen month old child of Eric G. M. and Halga Hogan, died form a sickness caused by eating poisoned parsnips.  This occasioned the beginning of a cemetery.  This cemetery also marks the route taken by many of the early California Pioneers around the north end of the Great Salt Lake.  The cemetery was the second in the State of Utah.
    The remains of the following people are buried here:
    Fannie Dack Parrish, pioneer of 1847, red-headed Irish woman, living in Centerville on the John Willy Farm, born October 28, 1795 at Wicklow, Ireland; died September 27, 1851.  The cause of her death was attributed to loneliness.
    Eliza A. Beebe Cheney, born January 11, 1815; died October 6, 1851.   She was a pioneer of 1850.  Four months later (February, 1852) her husband, Nathan Cheney, age 41, died, leaving five children orphans.  The oldest was fourteen.  The baby, Franklin Cheney, five years old, born January 23, 1848, died 1852.
    Thomas Day, the son of Joseph and Ann Hardy Day, born March 12, 1842; died November 1853, of inflammation of the bowels.
    [Robert] Williams Bidwell, born August 29, 1794, at Stillwater, Saratoga County, New York.  This family was in the Haun's Mill Massacre.  They came to Utah and arrived September 14, 1850.  They made their home in Bountiful.  He died January 4, 1851.
    Ira Robert Hatch, the infant son of Ransom and Lavern Bidwell Hatch, died in infancy.  Born April 1857 and lived only two weeks.
    John Thomas McKechinie, the three year old son of Jane McKechinie, a widow, died about 1855.
    The stone bearing the name Olive Cynthis Ormsby, was placed in the cemetery in remembrance of a California emigrant.  This marks the route taken by Major William Ormsby of San Francisco between 1849 and 1852.  She was the child of Major Ormsby, and died March 17, 1851.
    In one of the histories of Utah there is an article prepared by Dr. Oliver Ormsby, who passed through Sessions Settlement when he was twelve years old, on the way to California.  Quote from history:  "Major William Ormsby and his brother John S. Ormsby, left Pennsylvania in 1849 and went to California.  Early in 1852 Major Ormsby went back to Pennsylvania to bring his and his brother's families to California.  There were about one hundred souls in the company and they were fitted out with the finest horses and equipment.  However, when they reached Salt Lake, they had lost all of their horses and carriages and remained in Salt Lake two weeks to rest and recruit."
    In the early 1800's the land where this cemetery is located was high ground, but due to sub-irrigation in later years, it was necessary to stop burying people there.  After 1957, most people who died in Sessions Settlement were buried in Bountiful.  Sometime afterwards, roads were laid and some graves were found outside the fence.  These graves were then moved to the Bountiful Cemetery. 

Thanks to Woods Cross City, Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, and the Utah State Historical Society for providing this information.

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This page was updated on 04/10/02 by Annette Nelson.

Last updated  08/24/06
© 1999-2006 Annette Nelson

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