Milton Township Cemeteries Authority

The Archives & Records Center of the Archdiocese of Chicago dates the establishment of St. Stephen’s Catholic Mission about 1852.  It was located near the community of Gretna, also called Milton, two miles north of holdings that later became known as Wheaton.  The first settlers in the area, the records note, were Irish, who gradually sold their properties to German immigrants around 1850 and moved south to Lemont.  Many German families came from southern Germany, removing themselves from the threat of war, compulsory military service, or in the case of Bavarians, from the high taxes extracted from the citizenry by Ludwig II for his castle-building projects.   

St. Stephen’s lost its right of way when the Chicago-Great Western Railway built its roadbed across the access road of the church and it closed its doors in 1889 and was dismantled to provide lumber for a new school building at St. Michael’s in Wheaton.  Through the years, the cemetery of St. Stephen’s Catholic Mission, or Gretna Green, became the last resting-place for many DuPage County pioneers.  

The last burial was conducted in 1911. The Diocese of Joliet has agreed that Milton Township should care for this property. Next to the one-acre cemetery is a second acre which has never been tilled or cut. It is one of the few patches of un-damaged prairie in the Prairie State and is carefully maintained by volunteers who remove non-native plants.

Location: Along the Great Western Trail Prairie Path heading west from S. Main Place at St. Charles Road in Wheaton, north of Deluxe Towing and visible from Google Earth.