The following article appeared in the Ottawa Daily Times. 7 Jun 1978, p.28

Story of Basil Green and his family begins in LaSalle County
By Joan Hustis

Dorothy Masters of suburban Chicago is a distant relative of Basil Green, the man who buried three children in Central City, Colo., in 1869.

Green died in 1911 and is buried in the family cemetery in Dayton. Although he has no direct descendants in this area, there are still several distant cousins who live in and near Ottawa.

Elmer Williams of Ottawa came across the tombstone earlier this spring when visiting near Central City. Elmer could find nothing on the Green family, but he took several photographs of the tombstone and loaned them to this column for reprint. The tombstone was engraved “Johnnie, Kittie and Charlie. 1869. Basil Green, Ottawa, Ill.”

Miss Masters is the Green family historian. She was in Dayton over the Memorial Day weekend, visiting with her cousin, Grace Clifford, and read the article on the Central City tombstone. She has old family diaries and also a narrative written by Basil Green in 1910, a year before he died. She loaned the narrative for reprint.

Basil Green was born in 1830 in Licking County, Ohio, and was married in Crawford County, Ill., in 1859. He may have been a freight hauler or a wagon master for he made several trips to California and back during the days of the gold rush. He lost a leg, something Miss Masters called a traumatic experience, but no mention of the incident is made in his narrative.

On one of his trips west Basil Green lost two of his children, but the narrative says nothing of their ages or why they died. He came back to Dayton later and placed an order with a Central City firm to lay a tombstone on the grave.

Miss Masters said Charles and Catherine, the “Charlie” and “Kittie” on the tombstone were Basil Green’s children. The “Johnnie” was not his child. This child was apparently buried with the Green children, but no mention is made in the narrative as to the reason why nor is the other child identified by any other than the first name on the tombstone.

Basil Green had three children when he was in Colorado. The third one survived. When Green returned to Dayton, he became the father of six more children, according to Miss Masters.

Green’s narrative is eight typewritten pages, all single spaced. Portions of this narrative are as follows through the courtesy of Miss Masters.

[The compete narrative may be found here.]