(copy  transcribed from an unidentified newspaper article)

Historic Cemetery Should Be Restored
Commentary
By Grover Brinkman
Special to the Globe-Democrat

COLUMBIA - Wholesale vandalism and destruction has been going on for years at historic 
Miles Cemetery, atop Eagle Cliff midway between Columbia and Valmeyer.

The vandals have toppled and broken tombstones throughout this large pioneer cemetery.  
But the worst damage is to the Miles mausoleum, at the peak of the upthrust facing the 
sprawling Mississippi flood plain below.

Here sledgehammers were used to break the sealed door of the crypt to allow entry.  This 
is a large mausoleum, ruggedly built, containing crypts for 56 burials.  Now the crypts are 
all open and empty.

What were the vandals searching for?  Jewelry, perhaps?  Or were they even searching?

There are evidences of campfires inside the mausoleum.  Beer cans and bottles litter the 
place and obscenities are painted on the marble walls.

A BEER BASH inside a crypt for the dead?  It's happened over and over, and it still is taking 
place for there are well-beaten footpaths to the mausoleum, to its roof, to its entrance doors.  
Many stones have been carried off.  Some were thrown over the cliff.  Despite a heavy steel 
chain stretched over the single-lane road leading to the cemetery entrance, the vandals have gotten in.

The mausoleum at Miles cemetery was constructed of imported Italian marble long years ago 
and is a landmark in cemetery architecture.  Browsing through the broken stones today, one was 
found dated 1817.  There might be others even older for the patina of time and destruction has 
made many dates illegible.  This entire cemetery is overgrown with brome sedge, head-high.

Restoration of Miles Cemetery (also known as Eagle Cliff) was a project of the newly organized 
Monroe County Archaeological Survey back in 1973.  But evidently vandalism was too intense to 
continue.  Today the cemetery is a shambles, inhabited by night people, cemetery ghouls who go 
there for their beer blasts and animalistic acts of violence.

“FOR MILES AND MILES, it is all Miles.”  The man who said that had grandiose plans for his family - 
burial in a mausoleum so large it could contain 56 of his clan.  Despite the vandalism the cemetery 
has been used as late as 1963, as attested by a stone atop the grave of Mrs. Anna Wright.  One of the 
older burials is that of Elijah Axley, who was born in 1798.

Stephen W. Miles was far from an ordinary incoming settler on the frontier of the new Illinois country.  
Born in 1795 in Cazenovia, New York, his education and culture was far above the norm.  He was a 
musical genius, complete master of the violin.  The moment he settled near Eagle Cliff, he became 
legendary.

In some way, he acquired thousands of acres of prime farm land in the floodplain of the Mississippi.  
He brought in relatives from the East to embellish his feudal empire.  One of the people buried in the 
mausoleum was named Anny, “a pious, upright, honest colored servant,”  In other words, one of his 
slaves.  So when he climbed to the top of Eagle Cliff, to command the flood plains spread at his feet, 
it was proper (although arrogant) to say:  “For miles and miles, it all belongs to Miles.”

BUT TODAY, Miles’ empire has crumbled.  The ghouls who invaded his mausoleum have inscribed 
the walls with filthy graffiti; beer cans are stacked on the crypts like dead soldiers.  Here is history in 
fine Italian marble that should be preserved and marked as a historic site, recognized by the state.

But it’s too late now.  Perhaps it would be a workable idea to remove all of the broken stones and erect 
a large central obelisk at the top of the upthrust, that could contain the names and records of all the 
people buried here.  At least the ghouls would have no more incentive to destroy unless they used 
high explosives.

Looking at this shambles today, it is easy to visualize the truth of the poet Burns’ assertion that the, 
“Best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.”

Surely someone, some county organization, can evolve some plan to restore this historic old cemetery, 
and give it its rightful place in the annals of Southern Illinois!

SUBMITTED BY KERRY PATRICK