USA > Indiana > Huntington County > History of Huntington County, Indiana : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 36
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In 1914 the officers of the association were: E. E. Allen, president ; C. E. Bash, vice president; Rev. F. H. Diehm, secretary ; E. B. Ayres, treasurer ; Miss Ethel Jackson, superintendent.
The board of directors was then composed of the president, secretary, Dr. H. M. Krebs, W. T. Briant, J. E. Frash, Rev. J. F. Noll, C. E. Bash, Dr. Wallace Grayston, Dr. Olive Nelson, Rev. E. W. Cole, Henry Hoke, E. B. Ayres, Mrs. Jacob Dick, Mrs. Fred Bippus and Mrs. H. E. Rose- brough.
E. E. Allen, Dr. Wallace Grayston, Dr. M. H. Krebs, Mrs. H. E. Rose- brough and Miss Flora E. Purviance constitute the house committee, and the association meets on the call of the president.
Strictly speaking, the Huntington County Hospital is not a charitable institution in the sense that it is maintained by appropriations from the public funds, or that it is operated without expense to those who seek its accommodations. The charges, however, are moderate and the hospital offers an asylum to the afflicted, where they can be attended by their own physician and cared for by nurses qualified for their work. Among the Vol. I-22
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patrons of the institution are the various railways centering at Hunt- ington and the leading manufacturing concerns of the city. If a passen- ger upon one of the trains is injured near Huntington, or a railway or factory employee meets with an accident, he is taken to the hospital, where he can receive surgical treatment. In practically all such cases the expense is borne by the railroad company or the proprietors of the fac- tory. In this way the hospital has been a boon to quite a number of persons who might not otherwise have received the attention their injuries required, and to this extent the institution is engaged in a chari- table work. The association is constantly striving to improve the char- acter of the service rendered and by this means increase the popularity of the hospital.
METHODIST MEMORIAL HOME
Early in the year 1907, William and Ruth Chopson, residents of Sala- monie Township, Huntington County, made a proposition to the North- ern Indiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church to endow a home for aged people, provided the conference would raise a sum equal to the endowment. Mr. Chopson's first offer was to donate $25,000, but this was later increased to $45,000. When the conference met at Logans- port in the spring of that year the offer was accepted and a committee of eighteen-three from each district in the conference-was appointed to assume the work of organizing the memorial home movement. Rev. M. A. Harlan, of Auburn, was appointed financial agent, to take charge of the work of raising funds to meet the offer of Mr. and Mrs. Chopson. The committee met at Warren on May 1, 1907, to consult with the donors and organize for the campaign.
It was Mr. Chopson's desire that the institution should be located somewhere near his home, and on Wednesday evening, March 25, 1908, a meeting was held in the Warren Opera House to consider the question of raising $5,000 to purchase the Catherine Beard Farm, just north of the town, as a site for the home. Subscriptions amounting to $1,500 were taken at the meeting and T. R. Black, E. P. Miller, Ralph Myers, Henry King and Henry Groves were appointed a committee to solicit further contributions. On April 1, 1908, only a week after the opera house meeting, the committee reported that nearly $6,000 had been subscribed. The Warren Commercial Club was then placed in charge of this part of the movement and an option was obtained on the prop- erty, to await the action of the conference.
In the meantime the conference had not succeeded in raising the necessary $50,000 to meet the donations of Mr. and Mrs. Chopson, and the people of Warren and Mr. Chopson generously offered to extend the
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time one year. At the conference meeting in March, 1909, Mr. Harlan announced that the $50,000 had been raised and the committee was instructed to proceed with the work of establishing the home. The option on the Beard farm was then closed, the site purchased, and on July 3, 1909, ground was broken for the building. The home is a substantial brick structure, 100 by 150 feet in its greatest dimensions, two stories in height, with a basement under the entire building. Jonas W. Griffith was the contractor who erected the home for $28,600 and afterward stated that he failed to make any money out of the deal. The visitor to the home can readily believe this statement, as everything is of good material and the work is all done with mechanical skill.
METHODIST MEMORIAL HOME, WARREN
The home was dedicated on Thursday, April 7, 1910, with Bishop Cranston presiding, and was opened soon afterward, with Rev. E. L. Jones as superintendent and Mrs. E. L. Jones as matron. The institution is incorporated under the act of the Indiana Legislature, approved March 6, 1889, authorizing the incorporation of associations not for pecuniary profit, and its affairs are controlled by a board of eleven directors, six of whom are to be members of the Northern Indiana Conference and the other five lay members of the Methodist Episcopal Church residing within the bounds of the conference.
Arrangements have been perfected, however, by which the institution can be made a state-wide home. This was brought about through the adoption of the following resolution by the Northern Indiana Conference at its meeting in Bluffton in April, 1910:
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"When either of the other conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Indiana shall have raised in cash a sum equivalent to the $25,000 raised by the North Indiana Conference, then such conference or conferences shall be entitled to equal share in the management of the Methodist Memorial Home for the Aged, and share equally in the proper- ties donated by the late William Chopson, and other assets of the institution."
In connection with this institution, it is deemed appropriate to men- tion the man who made its establishment possible. William Chopson was born in Union County, Pennsylvania, November 18, 1829. His paternal ancestors were from Germany and his mother was of Irish extraction. In 1830 they removed to Ohio, settling first in Guernsey and later in Clinton County. William Chopson was reared on a farm, received but a limited education until he was twenty years of age, when he used the money he had saved to attend a graded school at Martinsville, Ohio, where he qualified himself to teach. For several seasons he taught school during the winter months, working at farming or brick making in his summer vacations. In the fall of 1850 he came to Indiana, and that winter taught what was then known as the Jones school, in Wells County, about three miles south of the Town of Warren. On January 29, 1852, he married Miss Ruth C., daughter of Simeon and Nancy Swaim, pioneers of Salamonie Township. In the spring of 1855 Mr. Chopson invested about five hundred dollars-the money he had saved as a teacher and brick maker-in a stock of goods and opened a general store at Warren. Two years later he sold the store and bought a farm in Wells County, where he lived until 1863. He then rented his farm and returned to Warren. For many years he devoted his time to farming and stock raising or dealing in live stock, accumulating considerable property. He and his wife were both actively identified with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and as they approached the sear and yellow leaf conceived the idea of endowing an institution for aged members of the religious denomination which they had so long been active in supporting. The result is seen in the Methodist Memorial Home at Warren. Mr. Chopson did not live to see the fulfillment of his desires, his death occurring a short time before the home was dedicated, but it stands as an enduring monument to his life of industry and right living, and to his generous Christian charity.
It is worthy of note that Huntington County has but little demand for institutions of a charitable nature. Her population is composed of people who believe in the dignity of labor and are self-supporting. Should some one meet with misfortune and need assistance, the churches, the fraternal and benevolent associations, the Ladies' Guild of Huntington, and other organizations are always ready to lend a helping hand. The
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county asylum or infirmary, maintained by the county authorities for worthy poor, is ample for all such cases as come to the attention of the county commissioners, and here and there temporary relief is given by some of the township trustees. It is quite probable that in no county of the state, of equal population, is there so little need for charity in its broad, general sense. Habitual paupers are practically unknown and indiscriminate begging is rarely seen upon the streets or highways.
CEMETERIES
There is one institution of a charitable nature that must sooner or later be established in the settlement of a new country, yet it is one the pioneers are reluctant to see make its appearance, and that is a burial place for the dead. When the first death in a community would occur some one would donate a tract of ground for a burial place and this would be the beginning of a cemetery. Land was cheap in those days, there was a bond of fellowship among the settlers, and in many instances the cemetery was not deeded to trustees and made a matter of record. As the old settlers died or moved away the next generation lost interest in the maintenance of these old graveyards, which were neglected, and in a number of cases only a trace of them remains. Within recent years more attention has been given to the care of burial grounds, plats have been filed in the office of the county recorder and trustees selected to assume control and care of the cemeteries. Scattered over the county of Huntington are a number of old country graveyards, most of which have no special history. In an atlas of the county, published in 1879 by King- man Brothers, many of these old burial places are located upon the township maps. As far as possible a list of them is given by townships in this chapter, and where any one of them has a recorded history it is noted.
In Clear Creek Township there is a small cemetery near the United Brethren Church in the southwest corner of Section 3, not far from the little Village of Goblesville. The same denomination has a burial place near the church in the northeast quarter of Section 21. In the eastern part of Section 11, about two miles southeast of Goblesville, is an old graveyard in which a number of the early settlers were buried, but of recent years it is rarely used. The German Baptists have cemeteries at their churches in Sections 20 and 24, and the Evangelical Church in the southwest corner of Section 25 also has a small burial place for members of the congregation and their families. There is but one cemetery in this township that has been regularly platted and entered upon the public records. Clear Creek cemetery, situated in the northeast quarter of
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1
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Seetion 28, was laid out a few years after the elose of the Civil war, and on November 17, 1877, Armstrong's addition of 166 burial lots was made to the original plat. The first burial here was that of Wesley, son of John R. Emsley, whose death oeeurred in November, 1841. Others who were buried here at an early date, many years before a plat of the cemetery was made, were George Dailey and children of Robert Nipple and John Moon, two of the early settlers.
The first cemetery in Dallas Township, of which there is any authentie aeeount, is situated in the southern part of Section 2, near the old Quaker Chureh established there in the early '40s. Half a mile south of it was the little settlement ealled Silverton, and a number of the early settlers there are buried in the Friends' eemetery, among them members of the Moore family, who were early settlers in that loeality.
As early as 1868 Loon Creek Lodge, No. 322, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, at Andrews, purchased ground for a cemetery. A plat of this eemetery was filed in the county reeorder's office on April 12, 1871, by E. B. Cubberly, J. S. Morris and Jacob Sellers, trustees. The original plat shows 166 burial lots. The cemetery is situated in the northwest corner of Seetion 23, north of the town, and its location near the bank of the Wabash River led to its being given the name of Riverside Cemetery. On November 30, 1887, Samuel and Elizabeth Bellman made a large addition to the cemetery, and on January 10, 1898, the trustees -- B. F. Morris, E. B. Cubberly and Heil MeKinstry-added 363 lots. Although this eemetery is owned and controlled by the Odd Fellows Lodge, it is open to all, and is one of the best managed eemeteries in the county.
Another burial place in Dallas Township is on the road running east and west between Sections 26 and 35, about half a mile east of where onee stood a United Brethren Church, and a little over a mile southeast of Andrews.
In Huntington Township, the most populous in the county, there are a number of well-appointed cemeteries. Probably the oldest burial place in the county was the one on the north bank of the Little River extending from near the Jefferson Street bridge up the stream to the grounds now oeeupied by the Knudson-Mereer Lumber Company. Here the wife and child of Elias Murray, the man who laid out the Town of Huntington, and other early settlers were buried. In after years the old eemetery, after mueh controversy and some litigation, was vacated, and the bodies were removed to the Masonie cemetery.
The Masonie eemetery was surveyed by George H. Brinkerhoff, eounty surveyor, on June 5, 1861, for the members of Mystie Lodge, No. 110, Free and Accepted Masons. It was situated north of Yancey Avenue and
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a little west of Guilford Street, the west line of the cemetery being the line of the old Ten-mile Reserve. Just west of it, on the Indian reserva- tion, was a tract of ground that had been set apart by William Delvin for burial purposes and appearing upon the old plats as "Delvin's Burying Ground." Mr. Delvin himself was one of the first persons to be buried here. East of the Masonic cemetery and adjoining it was a family burying ground belonging to T. A. Lewis, who on September 3, 1861, filed a plat of the old graveyard as an addition to the Masonic cemetery. In course of time Mystic Lodge surrendered its charter, the city grew up around the old cemetery and it was vacated, the bodies being removed to Mount Hope. The ground is now in what is known as Lesh's Addition to the City of Huntington.
Where the State Street school building in the City of Huntington now stands was once an old burying ground known as the Gephart graveyard, members of the Gephart family having been among the first to receive interment there. At the time it was established Huntington was a small town and no one thought that it would grow out far enough to include the graveyard within the corporate limits. In time the cemetery was bought by the city and used for burial purposes for some years, when it was decided to erect a school building upon the site. Friends of those buried there disinterred the bodies and took them to other cemeteries, and one of the city's finest public school buildings now occupies the site.
Mount Hope cemetery, the largest and most patronized of any in the county, had its origin in August, 1876, when the trustees of Lafontaine Lodge, No. 42, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Huntington, pur- chased ten acres of ground west of the city, in Tract No. 1 of the old Ten-mile Reserve, and had it laid out as a cemetery. The grounds were dedicated on July 4, 1877, by Past Grand Thomas Underwood, of Lafayette, and on August 13, 1877, the plat was duly filed in the record- er's office by H. B. Sayler, William H. D. Lewis and William M. Bell, as trustees of the lodge. The first Odd Fellow to be buried here was Isaac Schlosser.
In the establishment of Mount Hope a wise provision was made by the founders, in that 25 per cent of the proceeds arising from the sale of lots should be set apart as a permanent fund for the care and improvement of the cemetery. The lodge opened the cemetery to the gen- ·eral public and in a few years ten acres immediately west of the original plat were purchased and laid out in burial lots. A little later five acres on the east, adjoining the old German Reformed cemetery were pur- chased, so the lodge has now twenty-five acres within the cemetry inclosure. In the northeast corner of the original plat is a small tract belonging to the City of Huntington, though it is under the control of
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the trustees. In 1914 the board of trustees in charge of Mount Hope was composed of Lewis Bridge, H. S. Emley and Edwin B. Ayres.
The German Reformed cemetery above mentioned was given by Henry Drover to the Huntington German Reformed Church many years ago and is still used as a place of interment by that congregation.
When Ss. Peter and Paul's Catholic Church was established in 1838 the church lot was consecrated as a burial place. This lot contains less than one acre of ground, and as the city grew it became apparent that in time a new cemetery would become a necessity. The parish then purchased about five acres of ground just north of the city limits, on the east side of the Goshen road, and consecrated it as Calvary cemetery. Among the bodies removed from the church lot to the new place of sepulchre was that of Francis La Fontaine, chief of the Miami Indians.
Not far from Calvary cemetery is the burial grounds of the Lutheran Church. In the same inclosure with the Lutheran cemetery is the People's cemetery, which was laid out on November 10, 1896, by John C. and William Strodel and Charles G. Hauenstine. These cemeteries occupy fifteen acres on Tract No. 3 of the Ten-mile Reserve.
When Francis Dupuy died in Jackson Township, in 1841, he was buried about two miles west of Roanoke, where Nicholas and Susan Gettys, children of Samuel and Harriet Gettys, were buried about a year later. So far as can be learned this was the first graveyard estab- lished within the limits of Jackson Township. The cemetery at Wesley Chapel, the Methodist Episcopal Church in the southeast corner of Section 3, was consecrated to the burial of the dead about 1843. and another graveyard south of Roanoke had its beginning about the same time.
Zion cemetery, located in the southwest quarter of Section 32, Town- ship 29, Range 10, was established by the United Brethren Church at that point several years before the beginning of the Civil war, but the plat was not recorded until August 22, 1899, at which time John M. Flack, William Thorne and David A. Stetzel were the church trustees. There is also a cemetery at Pleasant Chapel, United Brethren Church, in the northeast corner of Section 6, near the Whitley County line, and about half a mile further west is a small Lutheran cemetery.
Glenwood cemetery, about half a mile north of Roanoke, was laid out as a burial place under the auspices of Little River Lodge, No. 275, Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, in 1883. The original plat included ten acres of ground, to which several acres have since been added, and the cemetery is doubtless the best managed and most popular burial place in Jackson Township. The Catholics also have a small but neat cemetery at Roanoke.
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Jefferson Township is well provided with cemeteries. Perhaps the oldest of these is the Satterthwaite graveyard, in the southeast quarter of Section 7, on the farm entered by Benjamin Satterthwaite about 1837. At the Purviance Chapel, near the line dividing Sections 9 and 10, in the northern part of the township, is a graveyard that was established about the time the church was formed there in 1868. About a mile south of the little hamlet of Pleasant Plain is an old graveyard that was a burial place for some of the early settlers, but little of its history is known. At the United Brethren Church in the southeast corner of Section 28, about a mile north of Milo, is a small cemetery maintained by the con- gregation; there is also a burial ground at Bellville, and the old atlas already referred to shows a cemetery in the northeast corner of Section 24, not far from the Salamonie River. This is known as the Taylor cemetery.
An old map of Lancaster Township shows a country graveyard in the northern part of Section 12, not far from Loon Creek. There is a ceme- tery in the northwest corner of Section 14, about a mile and a half south- west of the one above mentioned, and just two miles west of the latter is a graveyard established by the Lutheran congregation there many years ago. There is also one, a German Baptist, about half a mile north of Kelso.
On April 25, 1872, H. C. Black, then county surveyor, laid out the Lancaster cemetery for Joel Burket, David Burket and T. F. Hacker, trustees. The plat, which was filed on May 4, 1872, shows 108 burial lots, bounded on the west by the old cemetery, established some years before. Under the management of the trustees the old cemetery was also cleaned up and beautified, giving the Village of Lancaster and the sur- rounding country a burial place suitable to the demands of the com- munity.
Early in the year 1873 a movement was started by the Masonic and Odd Fellows' lodges of Mount Etna for the laying out of a cemetery, to be under the control of a board of trustees appointed by the two lodges. A tract of ground was procured in the southwest quarter of Section 31, Township 27, Range 9, immediately northeast of the village, and on April 12, 1873, the survey was made by James M. Hatfield, county surveyor, for John W. Giltner, Charles Hooker and A. R. Large, who constituted the first board of trustees. The original plat contained a little over five acres. On August 1, 1901, the plat of an addition con- taining 132 burial lots was filed in the office of the county recorder. This is one of the pretty burial places of Huntington County.
In the eastern part of Section 13, in Polk Township, near the Lan- caster Township line, is an old graveyard that was a place of interment
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for the inhabitants of the eastern part of the township in early days, though it is said the first person to be buried in the township was Jacob Barnett, who was buried at the old Hildebrand graveyard on the Sala- monie River, in the southern part of Section 25.
Near the center of Section 16 the Wesleyan Methodists established a church and burying ground some time in the '40s, and about two and a half miles south, in the southeast corner of Section 28, is a cemetery laid out by the Christian Church some years later.
A short distance west of Monument City is the cemetery where the people of the township erected the soldiers' monument in 1869. On Jan- uary 19, 1898, George Stephan, then trustee of Polk Township, laid out an addition of sixty-four lots to this cemetery known as the township addition. The plat was made by Thomas Ruggles, at that time county surveyor. Four of the largest lots were set apart by Mr. Stephan as a "Potter's field," or place for free burial for those unable to buy lots of their own.
The principal cemetery in Rock Creek Township is the one at Markle, which was laid out by Markle Lodge, No. 362, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in 1881. It is located north of the town, in the northeast quarter of Section 1, Township 27, Range 10. The original plat contained one acre of ground, but in March, 1905, a tract nearly as large as the original was laid out into burial lots by the trustees, John Zimmerlee, William Keller and Franklin A. Brickley. The popularity of the cemetery continued and increased as time went on, making another addition necessary, and on August 9, 1909, the trustees- Josiah Roush, John Zimmerlec and Daniel C. Bickhard-laid out 154 lots north and west of the old plat. The lodge takes pride in keeping the grounds cleared of rubbish, and the Markle cemetery compares favorably with burial places usually found in towns of its class.
Directly north of Toledo, or Brown's Corners, on the bank of the Wabash River, is an old cemetery established by the Presbyterian Church, organized there at an early date. The congregation has long since been disbanded and the cemetery is little used at the present time. Just across the road from this old burial place is a small but neat cemetery that was laid out a few years ago by Star of Hope Lodge, No. 464, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Toledo.
North of Plum Tree, in the northwest corner of Section 34, is a grave- yard connected with the Plum Tree Methodist Church, and in the north- east corner of Section 35 is another burial place that was established by the Christian Church organized at Plum Tree about 1840.
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