Item From the Past: Boot Hill

Back in the summer of 2005, I wrote about Mt. Moriah (Boot Hill), in Deadwood, SD: "[It's] a lovely wooded hill, covered in pine, dotted with stones of all sorts, from nearly worn-away to large, handsome, newish monuments. A light mist was falling, and it was fairly cold for the third of August, about 55° F. I think.

"Wild Bill Hickok came to Deadwood in the summer of ’76, died famously, and now reposes at Mt. Moriah. In recent decades, admirers erected a bronze bust to mark his grave, which is surrounded by an iron fence. Calamity Jane rests behind the fence as well, reportedly by her own request nearly 30 years after Wild Bill was stashed away."

As I've said before, acknowledge the famous, but don't ignore the obscure. Not far from Wild Bill is a stone for Grace Lela Trebilcock, born December 10, 1902, died April 27, 1909.

According to the on-line records of Mt. Moriah at least, she's the only Trebilcock in the cemetery. Maybe her parents were passing through Deadwood, or resident for only a few years. A sad story lost to time.

Trebilcock's an interesting name, though. The Internet Surname Database offers this information about the name: "Recorded as Trebilcock and Trebilcocke, this is a Cornish and English surname. It is, like the vast majority of Cornish surnames, locational, and in this case from a place called Trebiloc near the village of Roche. It is first recorded in the annals of the county in the year 1302. The place name and hence the later surname, is believed to mean 'The home on the cookoo's hill' from the Cornish medieval phrase 'tre-pyl-cok', although other explanations are possible."