Our cemetery is the final resting place for many North Dakotans who have made a lasting impact on our state.
Captain Grant Marsh (1834-1916) made the record books in the aftermath of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer's Last Stand. In a feat never equaled, Captain Marsh brought more than three dozen wounded survivors of Reno Hill from his landfall at the mouth of the Bighorn River to the hospital at Fort Abraham Lincoln - a distance of more than 710 miles down the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers - in just 54 hours. Marsh's arrival at the Dakota Territory fort at 11:00 pm on July 5, 1876 brought first word of Custer's monumental defeat to a stunned America.
Linda Slaughter (1843-1916) was a pioneer, with a unique and effective blend of vision, character, and determination. Throughout her life, she achieved many firsts: she was the first teacher, the first superintendent of schools in Burleigh County (which made her the first woman elected to office), and the first postmistress of Bismarck (in fact, the law changed in 1874 to permit married women to occupy the position of postmaster). Slaughter started the first Sunday school from her home (a tent) in 1872, and opened the Bismarck Academy the following year, which became the first public school in Bismarck. In 1881, she crafted a bill, creating a Board of Education. Slaughter wrote the words to the North Dakota state song in 1902.