David R. Koontz was born in Gallia County, Ohio, on September 20, 1829, and was buried here about September 10, 1852. He was the seventh child and youngest son of Martin V. Koontz, a bridge builder and carpenter, and Lydia Rickabaugh. The Koontz family was originally from Virginia, then moved to Ohio and in 1843 to Wapello County, Iowa. In 1852 the family joined a wagon train bound for Oregon. Francis Marion Koontz, who turned 14 as the train went through the Blue Mountains, later recalled that it was like a tribal migration, with 24 wagons whose members were all related. Edward Jay Allen, also in the train, said there were 32 wagons, mostly from Wapello County, with others from Ohio, Missouri, and Pennsylvania, and that at least 36 people in the train were related by blood or marriage. Family reminiscences indicate that Pawnee Indians raided the train along the Platte River and took seven horses, forcing some who had planned to ride to walk much of the way to Oregon. While passing Names Hill on the Sublette Cutoff near present-day La Barge, Wyoming, D.R. Koontz carved his name and the date July 7, 1852, on the north face of the bluff along with nine other members of the party. According to oral family history, he died from injuries suffered when he was thrown from his horse. The only other deaths recorded in the wagon train were his brother-in-law Moses Hale, who died of cholera near Fort Boise, and an unnamed child who died at the Columbia River Cascades; Hale also left his name inscribed at Names Hill. Oregon-bound emigrant James S. McClung passed the grave on September 17, 1862, and identified it as the grave of David Koontz of Dahlonega, Wapello County, Iowa, on the right side of the road on a small hill, covered with poles that were quite rotten, with the headboard rotted off at the ground but still lying by the grave and its knife-cut letters plain and distinct. Boy Scouts found the grave in 1915, built a fence around it, and erected a headstone.