Can anyone help? Thanks Angela My name is Nick Reiter, and I am writing from Gibsonburg, Ohio. I realize you probably have very little time for information requests, however yours was about the only contact e-mail address I could find with respect to Alexander County, Illinois. What I am trying to track down may or may not be totally new to you. However, as history (or possible history) for Alexander County goes, it would be an exciting "bombshell". An elderly acquaintance of mine, in Toledo, Ohio told me not long ago that there is a story claiming that the famous pirate of early American history, Jean Lafitte, was secretly buried in or near Cairo, Illinois. Apparently, my friend was visiting New Orleans many years ago, and took several of the famous cemetery tours there. The tour guide, at the time an elderly gentleman himself, claimed that when Lafitte died, sometime near or after 1826, he was denied burial in New Orleans because he had been a Freemason. For reasons not clear, his body was sent upriver to Cairo - then barely a settlement. Historically, there does seem to be little to nothing known about LaFitte's death and burial, apart from presumptions that he was killed in a skirmish and either went down with his boat or may have been buried in a shell mound on the Gulf coast. So there could well be room for more unusual curcumstances. Have you ever heard of this tale, or know anything about such a possibility? I will be making a road trip through the Cairo area this summer, with my family. Thanks for your time and trouble! Best regards, Nick Reiter