Cemeteries of Clinton County, Iowa
List of Cemeteries, interments and links to online info
Cemetery History
This information comes from a "Once Upon A Time" article by Everett Streit.
The first cemetery in this area was opened in 1811. It was the Lyons Cemetery located where the current Administration Building is. The remains of about 15 individuals were transferred to Oakland cemetery when it was platted and opened in 1856.
Springdale's oldest headstone is dated 1858 although an official survey was not made until 10 years later.
St. Boniface Cemetery was created in 1861, the same year the parish was formed.
St. Mary's parish purchased 10 acres of land in 1869 as the site of a burial ground.
In the early 1870s, St. Irenaeus parish cemetery, Calvary, was established.
Pine Grove Cemetery on 2nd Ave. was created by the Swedish Lutheran Church and was known as the Swedish Cemetery until 1925.
The seventh cemetery in the city of Clinton is Clinton Memorial Park which was opened in 1935.
The oldest cemetery in the county is believed to be St. James in Toronto with the first burial in 1810.
Clinton's Cemetery History from the Clinton Herald.
Cemetery Look-ups
When asking for help, PLEASE keep in mind that there are 80+ cemeteries. We have most of them online. Search them first. Do anything you need to do to find the location before asking for a look-up. Usually, you request a cemetery look-up to find the birth and/or death date, BUT, If you know the date of death, Send for a DEATH CERTIFICATE from the courthouse or AN OBITUARY from the library. You should have one for your records anyway.
The Friends of Clinton County Family History donated copies of all their work to the Clinton County Historical Society for inclusion in their Research Library. They may have additional information such as obituaries as well. For more information, please email Jan Hansen.
The Central Community Gene Society in DeWitt also has lots of information taken from readings they did in the late 70's and early 80's. You can email Ann Soenksen there for help.
I encourage you to write to one of the local genealogical societies for more information or to the courthouse for death, will or probate records.
Also, check out our Look-up volunteers, as some have cemetery info.
- Richard Carstensen: has quite a bit of info on all Clinton County Cemeteries.
- Judi Sayre Berry has a copy of the index to the Seventh Day Baptist Cemetery in Welton.
- The Clinton County/Gateway Genealogical Society has donated the index to Pape Funeral Home to the Clinton Public Library. They also have been indexing other funeral homes. Please visit their Funeral Home Page.
IAGenWeb Gravestones Project
The Gravestone Photo Project is an effort to gather and store digital images of gravestones. We currently have over 75,000! Wouldn't it be great to get photos from all the cemeteries online?
When visiting a cemetery, most likely all you will find are birth and death dates but, if you are fortunate, cemetery tombstones or sexton's records may also provide you with your ancestor's age at death, name of spouse, names of children, maiden name(s) and, occasionally, their birth place. Tombstones may also have symbols or insignias indicating military service and social or religious affiliations.
Check closely the names and info on those buried in the same plot as your ancestor or in near-by plots -- these may be relatives.
Finding the final resting place for your ancestor's can, sometimes, be quite a challenge. The Friends of Clinton County Family History have walked the cemeteries in Clinton Co., IA and have info on many of them. Most of the data comes from the tombstones along with sexton's records, obits and death records from the courthouse. They have graciously agreed to let us put an index online of the info they have gathered.
Cemetery Locations
Numbered Cemetery Map. Click on the map for a larger view. The numbers on the map correspond with the numbers on the list of cemeteries.
Cemetery Locations. This wonderful map was done by Art Mooney.