Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainGreen Lake Pioneer Burial Ground and Resting Place of Chief Highknocker
Highway 23 / Mill Street area, Green Lake, WI 54941
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public-cemetery access during daylight hours.
Access
Limited Access
Grass and unpaved paths through older cemetery grounds
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1840 · Ho-Chunk Heritage · Chief Highknocker / Henaga · Civil War Veterans · Green Lake Pioneer History
Dartford Cemetery is a small but historically dense pioneer burial ground in the village of Green Lake, Wisconsin, on the shore of the lake that the Ho-Chunk people knew as Daycholah — a sacred place where they gathered to honor the spirit said to dwell beneath the water. The cemetery holds burials from the area's earliest settler families, including Civil War veterans and several family-vault structures.
The cemetery's best-known burial belongs to Chief Highknocker, given name Henaga, born on the east shore of Green Lake in 1820. He was a Ho-Chunk leader whose English nickname derived from the stovepipe hat he habitually wore. He spent most of his life around the lake but was eventually pushed further north as settlement increased. His death was the result of a drowning accident in 1911 while attempting to cross either the Puchyan or Fox River, said by local tradition to have been the result of a drunken dare to swim across without a canoe.
He was buried near the river until the 1930s, when his son moved the grave to Dartford Cemetery to be closer to the lake. His grave is marked by a boulder taken from the lake and a distinctive gravestone carved with his likeness — an unusually personal monument for the period.
Green Lake itself is the deepest natural lake in Wisconsin and remains a small-town resort destination on Highway 23 in central Wisconsin.
Sources
Dartford Cemetery carries an unusually strong reputation in central Wisconsin folklore. The most-repeated stories involve dark figures and shadow movement among the older markers, with witnesses describing apparitions in Civil War-era uniforms and a Native American figure in full traditional dress wandering between the gravestones — the latter attributed in local lore to Chief Highknocker himself. We pass that figure on as community legend; respect for Ho-Chunk cultural perspective suggests that interpretations of an Indigenous leader's continuing presence are better sourced from tribal cultural offices than from non-Indigenous paranormal storytelling, and we present the reported sightings without claiming authority over their meaning.
A second cluster of stories centers on a family crypt with a crack in the roof. Visitors who have climbed onto the roof report being pushed off; the legend is one of the more frequently told Wisconsin cemetery folktales. A third strand involves children's-grave reports tied to a stone family vault holding burials of children from a disease outbreak, possibly polio, on the cemetery grounds.
Reported activity is mostly visual — orbs, shadow figures, drifting forms — with occasional reports of feeling watched or followed near the older sections. The cemetery has appeared in regional ghost-storytelling publications including the Wisconsin Frights site. No formal academic investigation has been published.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Walk Dartford Cemetery and find the boulder marker for Chief Highknocker (Henaga), the Ho-Chunk leader born in 1820 on the lake's east shore. The grave is marked by a lake-boulder and an unusual gravestone carved with his image. The cemetery also holds Civil War-era burials and small family crypts.
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