Butler County Lone Graves

Many gravesites have been lost to time.  The following are known to the Butler Co. Historical Society.  They were printed in their 1987 Cemetery Book, with the hope that these few sites may jog the memory of someone, about more lone burial sites in Butler Co..  If you have any knowledge of lost graves, please email me.

INDEX

 1. Unknown Man
 2. Two Unknown Children
 3. Sarah Kingsley
 4. Adna Thomas
 5. Two Children, Capper family
 6. Charlette Wentworth
 7. Merlinda Chard   A note received from Dawn Card made a correction to this entry 
 8. Rachel Clark
 9. Minnie Perry
10. Two Merfield Infants
11. Agnes Manly
12. Unknown Child
13. Three Children, Harris family
14. Abijah Stacy
15. Charles and Priscilla Anderson and  P. G. Nielsen
16. Several small children, McGregor family
17. Several Unknown Graves
18. Five Children, Croot family

  1. A grave of a man is found on the farm owned by Casjen Wildeboer in Section 18 of Jefferson Township.  The grave was found by his father when he was building a chicken house on the farm. The site was left untouched. The name of this person is unknown, as are the dates. Casjen Wildeboer’s farm is on the site of the abandoned town of Butler Center.

  1. The graves of two children are said to be on the farmland now owned by Robert Jacobs in Section 28 of Butler Township in the area of the abandoned settlement of Lowell. The grave is marked by a stone and is found on the edge of the woods.

  1. A grave was said to have been found somewhere on the farm owned by a Weibke west of Allison in West Point Township.  It is believed to be the grave of Sarah Kingsley who died in 1854 or 1865.  The informer was not sure of the date,

  1. The grave of Adna Thomas, who was born in 1793 and died August 21,1868, can be found on Section 29 of Beaver Township, on the second farm east of the Beaver Grove Cemetery.  Adna Thomas was buried beneath a buckeye tree.

  1. The graves of two children of a Capper family are found on the top of a grass covered hill in Section 5 of Pittsford Township.  At one time the mother of the person farming the land lined the graves with stones to mark the spot.  No markers are left and the whereabouts of these two graves is not exactly known, only that they do exist.

  1. A lady by the name of Charlotte Wentworth owned land in Section 11 of Fremont Township.  She made arrangements to be buried on the north east corner of her property.  She was born December 26, 1907 at St. Ansgar, Iowa.  She died April 27, 1983 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Her body was brought back to Iowa only to find the spot under water.  A pond had to be pumped before she was laid to rest on June 13, 1983.  There is no stone with dates, only a large rock marks the spot and chances are the land is again under water. The land is now known ad the Burt Jansen farm.

  1. Merlinda Chard, 63 years, 9 months and 27 days old, died November 19, 1900 in Albion.  She was buried in family burying grounds. Where the burial grounds can be found is unknown.  This information is from the Butler County Death Records. Correction: Her name is Malinda Codner Card, wife of Lyman Card and she is not buried alone, but in the family cemetery (Codner Cemetery) next to her husband, near her brother and many other family members.

  1.  Rachael Clark, 60 years old, died October 17, 1888 in Aplington.  From the Butler County Death records we find that she was buried in private burying grounds, whereabouts unknown.

  1. From the Butler County Death records, we find that a Minnie Perry died in Beaver Township and is buried in a private cemetery, whereabouts unknown.

  1. Two Merfield Infants are recorded as being buried in private burying grounds in Coldwater Township near Greene.  This information is from Death Records in the Butler County Court House.

  1. Agnes Manly, daughter of T. Manly, is said to be buried on the Ed Bartels farm somewhere in the orchard.  The grave is marked by a stone. The farm can be found in section 19 of Albion Township.  This information was passed down by Ann Smith of Kansas City, who recalls this family member’s grave.

  1. The grave of a child was found in the corner of a farmer’s field west of Clarksville.  No stone was found making the name of the child unknown.  The grave was accidentally dug up by a farmer working his field who reburied the small grave and planted lilac bushes to prevent this from happening again.  The exact spot is west of Clarksville, on the south side of the blacktop at the T-intersection west of the river bridge.

  1.   The graves of three Harris children can be found marked by a stone with no dates in section 28 of Butler Township.  It is on the land now farmed by Floyd Epley.

  1. The first death in Madison Township occurred in November of 1855 when Abijah Stacy quietly passed away.  He was buried at Beaver Grove without any funeral services.  In the early days the stagecoach stop south of New Hartford, where highway 57 is, was called Beaver Grove. The grave was probably unmarked.

  1. There are graves on the Gordon Jaquis farm, section 12 of Albion Township, that are being farmed over. Some gravestones are found in the nearby grove read; Charles and Priscilla Anderson, P. G. Nielsen, b. Denmark. The location of these graves is where a stagecoach stop once could be found, in the early 1850’s.

  1. Several small children of the McGregor family are buried on the late William McGregor farm in Jefferson Township, section 2.

  1. There are several graves at Jerusalem Hill, section 9, Beaver Township.  These unmarked graves were near a line fence, leaving one to wonder about the people buried there.

  1. Five Croot children, names and ages unknown, are buried in a fenced area on the Raymond DeVries farm in Washington Township, section 28 along the Railroad tracks.