Ostend Cemetery, McHenry

Apollos Thompson, a descendant of John Thompson of the Old Plymouth colony, left Massachusetts to settle in this area in 1842 when he purchased 320 acres of prime farmland with $400. His wife Lucinda and their children later joined him but tragedy struck the family when Lucinda died within six weeks of relocating. Thompson set aside an acre of land for a cemetery that became known as the Thompson Burying Grounds. The ground would later be consecrated and made into a community cemetery. Ostend Cemetery, as the community burying ground would come to be called, was named after the small Dutch town that grew around it. The name was changed in 1879 to reflect community ties with the school, post office and stagecoach stop. Grave markers indicate interments representing nearly every family in the early neighborhood. They are all that is left of the Ostend community.