found: pete hill’s grave

Pete Hill was the only Hall of Fame player whose final resting place was unknown.  No longer.  Jeremy Krock reports that he has, at long last, found Pete’s grave.  Here’s the story, in Jeremy’s words:

Saturday night after watching Cadillac Records, the story of Chicago's Chess Records, I started searching on the internet to see where these great blues players are buried.  Most are in the places we have been—Burr Oak, Restvale, Lincoln, Mt Glenwood, etc.  One of the main characters, Little Walter, was buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery.  I decided to refocus our attention on some other, less obvious cemeteries. 

Pete Hill was in the second south-side Catholic cemetery I inquired at.

John P. Hill is buried in an unmarked grave at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois: Grave 3, Lot 20, Block 10, Section 35.  He was buried on December 28, 1951, after his body was received from Albany, New York, by a Charles Jackson.  Kenneth P. Hill, his son, purchased three plots at this time (Kenneth was living @ 54th and Michigan in the city).  The other two have not been used and we know Kenneth is buried in Gary.  Gertrude [Pete’s wife and Kenneth’s mother] is not buried at this cemetery as far as I could tell.

Thanks to all that have worked on this project.  I am glad we finally have been able to locate his final resting place.  The shadow of Burr Oak has been hanging over us as we have all hoped and prayed his grave was not one of the ones violated there.

We will begin some fundraising through SABR to help purchase a marker for Mr. Hill in the near future.

Jeremy

UPDATE Incidentally, Jeremy points out that Holy Sepulchre is an Irish Catholic cemetery where Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley was buried in 1976.

Comments

[mike long]

To whom it may concern:

I am confident that Pete Hill was indeed born in Buena, Virginia in Culpeper County. Buena is a deserted former black settlement that is located on my farm. Many of the original structures remain but are in disrepair. Farms that adjoin mine are owned by the Hill family, a prominent Virginia family led by A.P.Hill, a general in Robert E. Lee's army. Pete Hill's parents were likely slaves on the Hill plantation and would have adopted the Hill name as their family surname as was commonly practiced. After emancipation, they would have continued living in the area, establishing a black settlement known as Buena where Pete Hill would almost certainly have been born.