The attractive glacial stone gateway is dedicated to the valiant pioneers of the Wabaunsee community and the Beecher Bible and Rifle Colony of 1856. On one pillar a John Greenleaf Whittier poem reads, 'They crossed the prairies as of old / Our Fathers crossed the sea / To make the West as they the East / The homestead of the free.' Maude Mitchell, daughter of William Mitchell, an Underground Railroad operator, designed the gateway. Sixty Civil War veterans are buried on these cemetery grounds.