Mount Moriah Cemetery (South Dakota)

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For other uses, see Moriah (disambiguation).

Cemetery Details
Mount Moriah Cemetery
Steve and Charlie Utter at the grave of Wild Bill Hickok.
Country:	United States
Location:	Deadwood, South Dakota

Wild Bill Hickok's Gravesite

Mount Moriah Cemetery on Mount Moriah in Deadwood, Lawrence County, South Dakota is the burial place of Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and Seth Bullock, and other notable figures of the Wild West. By tradition, the American flag flies over the cemetery 24 hours a day, rather than merely from sunrise to sunset.

There were two graveyards in early Deadwood. The Ingelside Cemetery and the Catholic Cemetery. Ingelside was part of the way up Mount Moriah and filled up quite quickly in the first years it was open. Many prospectors, miners, settlers, prostitutes and children were interred in it along with Wild Bill Hickok and Preacher Smith.

In the 1880s it was determined that the land that the Ingelside Cemetery was on could be better used for housing. Most of the graves there were moved up the mountain to Mount Moriah and re-interred. However, since many graves were unmarked or unknown some were not moved. Today it is not uncommon for people working in their garden or remodeling a basement or shed to find human bones as a left over from the Ingelside Cemetery days.

Mount Moriah has many different distinct sections in it. The main attraction is Wild Bill's grave site. Calamity Jane and Potato Creek Johnny are buried next to him. There are four different sections in the grave yard labeled Potter's field. These are the graves of unknown people/settlers that came from Ingelside or were buried without a stone or marker.

There is a Jewish section of the graveyard, where many stones are written entirely in Hebrew. There was a large Jewish Community in early Deadwood and they were afforded more rights and equality in the rough frontier town than other places in the country at the time. Sol Star, a partner of Seth Bullock was a member of this early Jewish Deadwood Community.

One section is labeled the Mass Grave site. A fire burned down a lumber mill killing eleven men sleeping there that night. Another section is labeled the children's section, this is because of the many children buried in Mount Moriah that died from the typhus, cholera and small pox outbreaks.

There is only one Chinese grave left in the cemetery, for Hui ta Fei-Men, as all the other Chinese buried there were disinterred and sent back to China to be reburied.

In addition there is a veterans section, where many Civil War and Indian War veterans are buried with gravestones supplied by the United States government at the request of their families.