Belmont Cemetery

BELMONT CEMETERY is located in the southwest quarter of Section 9 of Belmont Township. To reach the cemetery travel two miles east and 1-1/2 miles north of Milo.

Belmont Township was not settled as early as some of the other townships. Brothers, Daniel and Francis Monroe were probably the first settlers. They settled in Section 3 and were original members of the Highland Methodist Church. James Ball arrived in the 1850s and other early settlers were Joseph Wilson, John Duncan, Morris Thompson, Mr. Chapin, Joseph Alexander and Jackson Allen. Most of the early pioneers came from Belmont, Ohio.

Belmont Cemetery is located at the site of Belmont Zion Church. The Church was first the Freewill Baptist Church and was organized in the winter of 1871-72 with James Golden and wife, Samuel Shaw and wife, B.S. Runnels and wife, and William Hicks and wife as the first members. The frame church, built in 1873, cost $1,600.

In 1889 the Belmont Zion Christian Union Church was organized. When the Church was torn down in the early 1900s, an evergreen tree was planted at each corner of the church building site.

John Feight donated land for the original section of the cemetery about 1864, and two small children appear to be the first burials.

In Deed Book 73, page 378, S.J. Van Gilder deeded to Belmont Cemetery a tract of land 17 rods by 12 rods. The lots contained therein numbered consecutively from one to 164 and each lot is 18-1/2 feet long north and south and 13 feet wide east and west including aisles. This deed is dated July 19, 1917.

A new addition was deeded to Belmont Cemetery on September 9, 1974 and is recorded in Book 174 on page 620. Belmont Cemetery has been referred to as Belmont Zion and as the Old Baptist Cemetery. The east section of Belmont Cemetery is called St. Augustine Cemetery and is associated with St. Augustine Catholic Church in Milo, Iowa.

A double burial occurred in Belmont Cemetery when Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Westerfield, who died just a few minutes apart, were buried in the same coffin in the same grave.

Cemetery and Death Records of Warren County, Iowa, Warren County Genealogical Society, Walsworth Publishing Company, Marceline, Missouri: 1980.

View records submitted to the Iowa Gravestone Photo Project for Belmont Cemetery.