For the Family
The owner of the Locust Hill graveyard, Jane Sale Henley, and Buena Vista, Clara Belle Wheeler have each tried to maintain and open up their homes to the public in the interest of their respective families. Henley is related to Meriwether Lewis and worked to find the Locust Hill graveyard on the property her family managed to keep as well as restore the graveyard and promote interest in Lewis and Clark. Wheeler's family had no connection to the Clarks, but she donated land to a museum dedicated to Lewis and Clark because of her parents' interest in Lewis and Clark as well as to promote awareness of these men.
Over the years the Lewis family sold most of the land that was originally a part of Locust Hill. The family had moved away from Charlottesville by the beginning of the twentieth century and Henley grew up in West Virginia. She always knew she was related to Lewis, but never visited the property. Only until she and her husband moved to Charlottesville in the 1960s did Henley begin to try to find the graveyard. After Henley had moved to Colorado Springs the new owner of Locust Hill, Dolly Buswell, found the graveyard in 1983 (Henley, 2002).
Ten years later, Henley became Co-Chairman of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation's 1995 annual meeting. The organization held the meeting in Charlottesville and to prepare for the meeting and a trip to the Locust Hill graveyard, Henley organized Locust Hill Graveyard Foundation to restore the graveyard in 1993. Besides her growing interest in Lewis and Clark during the early 1990s, Henley also wanted to restore the graveyard to honor her mother. Henley brought a group to the graveyard in 1995 and the Graveyard Foundation holds yearly lunches in the graveyard to celebrate their family's heritage and the area's history (Henley, 2002).
Wheeler's family was not related to Lewis and Clark, but her parents bought Buena Vista because of their interest in Lewis and Clark. In the 1970s, the family bought and reassembled a period clapboard house and opened it as a museum dedicated to George Rogers Clark on the property. The museum closed in less than ten years, but Wheeler has given the land and the cabin for the new Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center to honor her mother (Wheeler, 2002).
