Willie Keil, nineteen-year-old son of Dr. William Keil, leader of the Bethel Colony, died four days before the group was to leave Bethel, Missouri, in May 1855 to settle here after coming west in November 1855. Because of his great desire to go west with the group, his body was taken along in a lead-lined box filled with alcohol, and his sealed coffin was carried in a wagon remodeled as a hearse that led the wagon train west. By lamplight in the evening, Willie was buried here on November 26, 1855.