HISTORY OF THE  ESTABLISHMENT OF OAKDALE CEMETERY

One of the enterprises in which I was interested, and which I recall with satisfaction, because it will be a permanent benefit to the city of Davenport, is the establishment of Oakdale Cemetery; and I propose to devote this chapter to a history of the undertaking, that the facts, never before all stated correctly, may be put on record.
Some time after all the land in this section was supposed to be entered. I heard that the eighty-acre tract where Oakdale is situated had been overlooked. This was about 1845, I think. I sent up to the Dubuque land office and entered the tract. A year later, I sold it to John Mullen, an Irish drayman, for five dollars an acre. About ten years later (in 1856), some half-dozen gentlemen and myself agreed that Davenport ought to have better accommodations for her dead something that would be an honor to the city in years to come. The "City Cemetery" was inadequate, besides being badly situated. "Pine Hill' was a private speculation, which we did not approve. We organized a company, and looked about for suitable grounds. After thorough examination, we selected the ground now called Oakdale, and bought half of it (forty acres) back from John Mullen, paying him one hundred dollars an acre.
George B. Sargent and myself contributed the largest amounts. The company also borrowed twelve hundred and fifty dollars from some one in the East. When we bought Mullen's forty acres, land near the city was high. Davenport was having a "boom."
As we could not be incorporated until the Legislature met, which would be two years, the directors had Mullen deed the land back to me,
and I held it for the company until the Legislature met, when I conveyed it to the company.
We employed an expert landscape gardener, of Washington, D. C, to lay out the cemetery, and paid him five hundred dollars for his work.
He had planned and laid out some of the finest cemeteries in the United States. The first two or three years, our company was very much embarrassed. We were passing through the hard times of 1858-59, and were hard-put to it to collect money for necessary expenses.
The loan of twelve hundred and fifty dollars had to be paid, as the lender threatened to foreclose.
George B. Sargent and myself each loaned the company five hundred dollars.
The remaining two hundred and fifty dollars, Antoine Le Claire, at my solicitation, loaned us, I giving him my individual note for the money, as he would have nothing to do with the company. I believe the affairs of the company have been very prosperous for several years. Oakdale is a beautiful place, and will, from year to year, become much more beautiful.
All moneys received from sale of lots, with the exception of necessary expenses, are to be spent in beautifying and improving the grounds.
The originator, and the most indefatigable man in pushing this enterprise forward, was William H. F. Gurley, Esq., long since dead, and who sleeps, I believe, in the cemetery at Washington, D. C.