by James Coplin

Created on: January 15, 2010

In Long Lake, Minnesota, there is a spot known as Union Hill. Per its description, it holds a lofty position overlooking the Long Lake, the rolling crest of it shadowed with oaks, poplars and what is left of the elms. The crest itself is relatively flat and open, shaded by its natural border of trees and sprinkled in the springtime with yellow Susan's and red clover.

You can't really see it from the road. Strangers passing by must wonder at the old black iron fence and the gate posts suggesting one hung there in the past.  They still support the arbor between them, arching fragile and lacy - overhung by leafy branches that had grown closer with the years. One might think it a forgotten picnic ground or a disused park. Yet the spidery letters above the ghost of the gate still read its true name and purpose. The Wakefields, the Retingers, the Stubbs and the rest of the old families remain the prime homesteaders and no dirt has been turned in the Union Cemetery since Woodrow Wilson received his last vote.

They once called it Tepee Hill for each summer the Sioux made their camps there, hunting what had then been the wide forests and pulling fish from the lake. They had no mind for the French-German settler families that cut the wagon road - the same one the cars buzz over beneath the highway today - and built cottages, cleared land and laid claim to their grounds. The Sioux just passed through though they paused each year on the hill. The warm sun returned each summer and so did they.

 Long Lake became a town, the Long Lake on one side and the Hill on its edge. The town grew impatient with the annual migration of unchristian savages. Who knew when they'd go native and murder them all in their beds? They were not certain the tribe would leave willingly and held no legal claim to sue the militia to force them. So in the fall, when the Sioux moved on, Long Lake moved its dead and buried them on Tepee Hill  and made it a cemetary- knowing the Sioux would not dwell among graves. So the Sioux came no more, many forced to Reservations - far more cramped then the coffins in what was now Union Hill.

I often thought of this story when I walked Union Hill. I was most often alone among the grey stone head posts, more than a centuries rain, frost and wind cracking their etched surface. Untended grass and wild foxglove hid the low markers; rarely dried and crumbling bouquets favored a grave. Just below the stream of cars hummed yet what reached Union Hill seemed more the buzz of insects. The lake sparkled, the wind stirred the leaves. Nothing of modern times seemed to pass the iron fence except the grinding weight of the past, erasing the dead's markers as it had their remains.

I like to think that when it is all turned to gravel and dust, the ghosts of the old families will dissolve and blow away with a puff of the lake breeze. Perhaps then the spirits of the long dead Sioux will take their place, their spectral tepees once again outlined against the indigo twilight and the light of the moon tinting the rippled lake.

Until then the forgotten faces and old names keep and protect Union Hill as a faded old photo holds the image of a changeless moment - a scrap book seldom re-visited, yellowed pages all full.

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