Tombstone mystery solved

Just a step off Janet Niewold’s patio, surrounded by hostas and leaning against a neighbor’s garage, is the answer to a minor, but fascinating, graveyard mystery.

Last week, Inside UW–Madison included a pre-Halloween story about the two graves that remain on Bascom Hill dating to the 1830s. One grave is that of William Nelson, who reportedly died of typhoid in 1837 and the other is Samuel Warren’s.

After the story appeared, Niewold — development director at the Morgridge Center for Public Service — contacted Inside UW–Madison to say that Warren’s long-lost tombstone is in her back yard.

Warren, of Middlesex, England, was killed by lightning in 1838 and buried on Bascom Hill. His remains were unearthed and left in place in 1918 when the statue of Abraham Lincoln was moved from a spot lower on the hill.

Just four years later, in 1922, crews excavating in front of Bascom Hall turned up Warren’s tombstone. The tombstone was reportedly given to the Wisconsin Historical Society, but it later disappeared.

Somehow, the stone — whose carving is remarkably intact — wound up in the back yard of Niewold’s 104-year-old home on the near west side. No one knows for sure how it arrived there.

Niewold has lived in the house for the last 21 years and said the 173-year-old headstone was there when she moved in.

“It’s been delightful to know a little piece of history that has a little mystery associated with it,” she says.

The tombstone, which has a diagonal crack running through it, bears the inscription: “Sacred to the Memory of Samuel Warren, Of Middlesex, England, Strucketh by Lightening, 1838.”

“We’ve seen little snippets about him over the years, and I find the story — and the fact that his tombstone is here — very interesting,” Niewold says.