Mellette House Fundraiser Will Raise the Dead

How would you like to meet some residents ofearly Watertown?  Well, you can, at this year’s first ever “If Headstones Could Talk” tour of Mt. Hope Cemetery in Watertown, South Dakota, scheduled for Saturday, June 7, 2008.   Guides will lead the walking tour through the cemetery and, along the way, visitors will meet six of Watertown’s early citizens.

The tour is being held as a fundraiser for Mellette House and is the first in what the Mellette Memorial Association board of directors hopes will become an annual event.   Plans include presentations at the featured graves by local people serving as re-enactors of these historical figures.   Individuals who will be spotlighted this year include General George Carpenter, Charles Goss, John Banvard, Oscar Vaux, Etta Tarbell, and Arthur Mellette.

“The cemetery is a treasure of history for early Watertown,” said Mellette board president Prudy Calvin.   “The folks we have selected to spotlight in the first tour reflect a variety of professions and experiences of pioneer settlers in Watertown.”  

Calvin said that the event will be held, rain or shine, on June 7, 2008.  Tours will be conducted beginning at 1:00 p.m. and ending with the last tour starting at 3:30 p.m.  Tours will leave approximately every 20 minutes from the mausoleum and will include at least an hour of walking and/or standing.  “Be sure to wear comfortable shoes,” she noted.    “Guides will lead tours through the cemetery, stopping at the selected gravesites where re-enactors will talk a little bit about themselves, their lives and their experiences in early Watertown,” she continued.    

Early settlers spotlighted for the event include a surveyor, a merchant, a world renowned painter, a livery owner and the first rural mail carrier in the county, the first white woman in the county and the first Governor of the state of South Dakota.  “With the exception of Arthur Mellette, it was difficult to choose what other early settlers to feature in the tour.  We hope to be able to continue this tradition in future years,” Calvin said.

The Redlin Art Center will partner with Mellette House in the event.  Ticket holders will present their tickets at the day of the event and will receive a coupon which can be redeemed at their Gift Shop for a free print.  “For an additional $20,” Calvin said, “the Gift Shop will upgrade the unframed print for a beautifully framed one.  We are grateful to the Redlin Art Center for their continued support of Mellette House in this very generous manner.”