Irish Monument

 This six-foot Celtic cross located in the old section of the cemetery was dedicated on April 28, 2000.  It marks the mass grave where over fifty railroad workers were buried in the early 1850s.  Although not originally marked, these two plots were unique because workers were usually buried in forgotten trackside graves.

"This Celtic cross honors the memory of more than fifty souls buried here in the early 1850s.  These immigrants from Ireland were driven from the land of their birth by famine and disease.  They arrived sick and penniless, and took hard and dangerous jobs building the Chicago & Alton Railroad.  Known but to God, they rest here in individual anonymity - far from the old homes of their heirs - yet forever short of the new homes of their hopes.  Their sacrifices opened interior Illinois and made it possible to develop the riches of the land we share today."

-text from the marker