Melugin Grove Cemetery - Compton, IL
N 41° 42.446 W 089° 05.843
16T E 325501 N 4619419
A historic cemetery in rural Lee County, Illinois
Waymark Code: WMM203
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 07/05/2014
Views: 1
The long-gone town of Melugin's Grove dates from a couple of decades before the US Civil War. When the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy built a spur line from Earlville through Paw Paw and out to Amboy and beyond, it was layed out on the higher ground south of Melugin's Grove.
Joel Compton platted a new town along the railroad, and soon Compton sprung up. The folks at Melugin's Grove moved (in some cases, bringing their houses with them) to Compton. This kind of move happened all over the midwest when the railroads came through. Now all that is left of Melugin's Grove is this cemetery and a few houses. One of the nearby roads is named Melugin Grove Road. The topographic maps, including the Waymarking map, call this area The Burg, but none of the locals call it that, and no one knows where that name came from! (Probably a topo map maker knew there was a town here but didn't know its name, so they used The Burg as a place holder, many years ago, and the name stuck -- but only on the maps.)
Because this cemetery is in Brooklyn Township, it is also sometimes called Brooklyn Cemetery (not to be confused with Brooklyn Lutheran Cemetery, south of Compton). Oddly enough, there is a town of West Brooklyn, but no town named East Brooklyn or just Brooklyn. Although there are some graves without dates, the oldest recorded grave is from 1855. A friend of this poster buried his first wife here back in 1993. There were burials the year of this waymark posting.