As before stated, the first death in the county, of which there is any record or recollection, was a son of Mr.Boyer, named Henderson. Some affirm that Joseph Kinney-thrown from a horse and killed-was the second, and some say the third death. The burden of the proof is that he was the second. His grave was the first in the burying-ground now known as Sugar Grove Cemetery. There is a strange fact in connection with this eldest known grave in Menard County. Kinney was injured by being thrown from his horse while on his way from a horse-race, and he died very soon after the fall. Shortly after his burial, an elm sprang up from the very center of the grave. This was allowed to grow from year to year; and it seems there was peculiar nutriment in the soil of that spot for the elm, for it grew with remarkable rapidity. It stands there to-day, a giant tree, and the grave is entirely covered and obliterated by it; and there it stands, a living, verdant monument, wrestling with the tempest, and glittering in the sunshine, silently telling of the death of Joe Kinney.

-- Taken from, HISTORY OF MENARD & MASON COUNTIES, ILLINOIS 1879, Pg. 244