Pagin Pioneer Cemetery

KINGSBURY, PAGIN, BALDWIN, PILGRIM, BEARD, WHEELER, DUFFY, AMBROSE

Posted By: Bill Waters (email)
Date: 1/12/2011 at 09:13:28

Postville paper of the time, article hand dated "written 1969", from my mother's scrapbook collection.

Other Frankville News. Pagin Pioneer Cemetery

The Winneshiek County Historical Museum at Frankville has received an original deed to a Lot now known as Pagin Cemetery. It was issued to A. C. Kingsbury, whose infant daughter, Nancy, is buried there.

The certificate was donated by Mrs. W. L. Baldwin (Ethel), Wiona, Minnesota, daughter of A. C. Kingsbury. She has visited the Museum and sent the framed certificate to Mrs. Arthur Ruen. Mrs. Baldwin is a long-time friend of the Pilgrim family, who also lived on the Beard farms. C. W. Pilgrim was a cream-skimmer.

Mr. Kingsbury was the butter-maker at the creamery which was located near the Cemetery site. The family lived on the old Beard farms.

William Beard moved his family in 1851 from Indiana. He was the builder and operator of the first creamery in Winneshiek county.

The oldest recorded burial place in Frankville township is the Pagin Cemetery located in Section 11. The land was given by Mrs. Beard and though there were burials besides, the result of deaths of immigrants, who traveled through Iowa along the nearby Pioneer roads; the cemetery was not dedicated until July 4, 1852.

The Beard farms are now owned and occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Norman H. Wheeler and family and Mrs. Charles Duffy. The farms are directly east of the Mrs. Leora Ambrose farm. The cemetery was originally called the Washington Prairie Cemetery Association. The name now used was just "picked up", to identify it from other Washington Prairie areas.

There are Pagins living in the area and older members of the family are buried there.

A tombstone to mark the grave of Little Nancy Kingsbury, who died in 1889, was placed at the site by Mrs. Baldwin during the past year or so.

Postville paper of the time, article hand dated "written 1969", from my mother's scrapbook collection.

Submitted by Mary Durr