Cemetery Records
| Muscatine County Iowa Cemetery Records | |
Submitted by Dave Dunston.
We know nothing more about this Miller family or these graves mentioned.
If you know more about them please let let us know.
Surname First Name Age or Birth Date Death Date Notes Miller G. W. . July, 1842 . Miller I. V. . July, 1842 . Miller John H. Aged 70yrs, 22dys
Dec. 8, 1800Dec. 20, 1870 .
High Prairie.--Situated on a hill about three miles west of the High Prairie church in an old private graveyard are three graves whose headstones bear the dates of 1842, 1842 and 1870.
The first two dates are inscribed on small markers about 8 by 12 inches. One reads "G. W. M. Died July, 1842," the other "I. V. M. Died July, 1842." On a larger stone about 3 feet high and 18 inches wide is engraved "John H. Miller Died Dec. 20, 1870. Aged 70 years 22 days. Asleep in Jesus." The lettering is encrusted with that green mold which attacks aged marble but the words can be read easily. All stones are in good solid condition.
Sturday three-inch galvanized iron hollow fence posts, with braces of smaller iron, set in concrete, support a four-foot woven wire fence which is topped by a barbed wire to protect the graves and stones from trampling by stock in the pasture surrounding the rectangular lot.
The graves with the markers of earlier date are evidently those of children, the two being placed on the north side of the enclosure. The larger gravestone is in the southwest corner. Two young wild cherry trees have grown up about the center of the lot. Shrubbery, presumably lilac, with a last year's bird nest in its branches, take up the space in the southwest corner. Thick bluegrass sod covers the entire plot.
Six decayed stumps and a rotten tree trunk outside the fence on the north and west sides indicate that in earlier days these graves were sheltered from unfriendly stormy winds by a screen of trees. A short walk northward takes one to the brink of the high hill, one of a range through which a stream meanders in a fairly wide creek bed. Across the creek and up on its high bank runs the road leading to the Cedar river bottoms, a short half-mile away.
This "John H. Miller" who died in 1870, was born Dec. 8, 1800, less than a year after George Washington died. Had he had the opportunity he could have shaken the hand of every United States president----but Washington---down to Rutherford B. Hayes, 17 presidents.
He could have remembered distinctly the war of 1812-14 and was old enough to have participated in the Mexican war (1844-48). At the time of the opening of the Civil war he was 61 years old. While he may not have engaged in active war service, he probably served as a patriotic citizen at home. He might possibly have had sons in the Grand Army.
Presuming that the small graves contain the remains of children of John H. Miller, those children were buried two years before the invention of the telegraph, four years before Iowa was admitted to the union as a state and six years before the discovery of gold in California.
It is 60 years since the body of John H. Miller was placed on the hilltop south and west of the old house known to the oldest residents as the "Matt" Cochran homestead.