Special Events

School tours: Wed-Fri, October 6-8, 2010 – 9am to 4pm

$50/group (30 students per group); advance reservations required

Public tours: Sunday, October 10, 2009 – Noon to 4pm

$5/adult, $2/child; tours leave every 15 minutes

Join us for the twelfth annual Talking Spirits: Forest Hill Cemetery Tour, held at beautiful Forest Hill Cemetery, 1 Speedway Road, in Madison.  This award-winning living history program illuminates the lives of many prominent—and lesser known—figures in Wisconsin history.  Focusing on the contributions of Wisconsin’s soldiers and citizens during the Civil War, local actors and actresses don period dress, giving viewers the once-in-a-lifetime experience of meeting those “characters” on the cemetery grounds.  Tour guides will lead informative discussions of the cemetery’s rich history and gravestone art interspersed among the vignettes.

This year’s tour will highlight:

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Harnden who led the Wisconsin cavalry detachment that captured Jefferson Davis in Irwinville, Georgia in May 1865.

Alice Whiting Waterman who was known as the “guardian angel” of the Confederate rest, by creating a final resting place for the 104 Confederate soldiers who died as POWs in Camp Randall.

Colonel Cassius Fairchild the son of Madison’s first mayor, Jairus, and brother of Governor Lucius, he fought in over a dozen battles with the 16^th Wisconsin Infantry.

Lieutenant Alfred Lampson was captured at Gettysburg, and made a daring and successful escape from POW Camp Sorghum near Columbia, South Carolina.

William Blount and Emma Billow, two orphans of the war, they lived and subsequently died at the Soldiers’ Orphans Home founded by Cordelia Harvey.

For more information, please contact Jennifer Kaye at (608)264-7663 or jennifer.kaye@dva.state.wi.us.