IAGenWeb Project - Clayton co.
updated 05/28/2023

Cemetery Index

McCleland Family Cemetery
Sec. 33, Garnavillo twp.

~Note: the surname is found spelled McClelland, McCleland and other variations, depending on the record.

* Burials
* General history
* Detailed history & commentary
* Cemetery clean-up Nov. 2022
* Restoration completed spring 2023


copyright Julia Coughlin, photographer, 2016 - used with permission
Nancy Bleil at the McCleland cemetery, 2018
©2016 Julia Coughlin


 

Photo credits & copyrights on this page are as follows:

©2016 Julia Coughlin - Permission was granted by Julia to Nancy Bleil to have the photos posted on the Clayton Co. IAGenWeb site.

©2022 Ellen Collins & ©2023 Ellen Collins - Permission was granted by Ellen to Nancy Bleil to have the photos posted on the Clayton Co. IAGenWeb site.

copyright Ellen Collins, photographer, 2023 - used with permission
McCleland Cemetery, May 2023
©2023 Ellen Collins

~~

copyright Julia Coughlin, photographer, 2016 - used with permission
McCleland Cemetery, 2016
©2016 Julia Coughlin

 

Burials

McClelland, James A. 1790 04/20/1851 h/o Juliet; Veteran War of 1812
Note: the WPA records incorrectly record his DOD as 04/16/1852
McClelland, Juliet G. nee Oliphant 1799 01/28/1855 w/o James



General history of the cemetery
~compiled by S. Ferrall, August 2014

The cemetery is on the land originally owned by James A. McClelland. Land patent records indicate the James A. McCleland as owner of E½NW, Section 33, patent issued 01/01/1846; and Juliet G. McClelland as owner of NESE, Section 27, patent issued 01/02/1848. Both were cash sale homesteads. (BLM - General Land Office Records, online database)

Notes written by the WPA worker who recorded the graves in this cemetery indicate that they were in a field near the road on the Oscar Pufahl farm. According to old maps, the Oscar Pufahl farm was in Garnavillo twp., section 33.

The book Garnavillo, Iowa, Gem of The Prairie, by Roggman, 1988 gives the cemetery location: "....on a farm presently owned by Valmah Brandt. The land was for many years known as the Pufahl Farm." and that it is approximately 2 blocks west of Hwy 52, with the large trees marking the cemetery "readily seen from the road". Roggman also indicates that stones form a wall around the cemetery.



McCleland Family Cemetery - burial place of James A. McCleland & Juliet G. (Oliphant) McCleland
~compiled by Nancy English Bleil, great-great granddaughter of James A. & Juliet G. McClelland, August 2016
(Note: the comments in parentheses are by Nancy English Bleil)

April 20, 1851 - death of James A. McCleland
January 28, 1855 - death of Juliet G. (Oliphant) McCleland

They are buried in the McCleland Cemetery, a private family cemetery on the eighty acres that James purchased on January 1, 1846.

copyright Julia Coughlin, photographer, 2016 - used with permission copyright Julia Coughlin, photographer, 2016 - used with permission

The gravestones prior to restoration. Left: James Right: Juliet
©2016 Julia Coughlin


During the 1930’s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers compiled an Iowa Graves Survey. Notes written by the WPA worker indicate the graves were in a field near the road on the Oscar Pufahl farm in Garnavillo twp., section 33.

“The book Garnavillo, Iowa, Gem of The Prairie, by Roggman, 1988 gives the cemetery location: ‘....on a farm presently owned by Valmah Brandt. The land was for many years known as the Pufahl Farm.’ and that it is approximately two blocks west of Hwy 52, with the large trees marking the cemetery ‘readily seen from the road.’ Roggman also indicates that stones form a wall around the cemetery.” (transcription by S. Ferrall in the General History of the cemetery)

In 1957 Marion Nancy English of Chillicothe, Ohio (James and Juliet’s great-granddaughter) wrote:
“I found a letter today written to my grandmother Quigley (Anna Woodbridge McClelland Quigley was one of James and Juliet’s daughters) from a kind neighbor friend of her mothers telling her about the sudden death (January 28, 1855) and burial of Great-Grandmother Juliet McCleland. What I would think was pneumonia. It is a beautiful letter and beautifully written. Only one daughter could attend the funeral.” (Marion does not name the daughter.)

“When the farm was later sold, my grandmother went there and had a stone wall built around these graves with an iron fence on top of it.” (This wall is most likely what is referenced in the1988 book, Garnavillo, Iowa, Gem of The Prairie.) “Roggman also indicates that stones form a wall around the cemetery.”

(Marion’s grandmother Anna Woodbridge McClelland married George Washington Quigley in Clayton County, Iowa on October 25, 1854. After the wedding, they traveled to Amherst, Ohio to George’s family home to make their home.)

Marion’s letter continues:
“The owner of the farm at that time was a great big kindly man named John C. Bierbaum. Both Unk (Robert Burns Quigley - born in 1871) and Mom (Emily Elizabeth Quigley- born in 1865) as young kids accompanied their mother (Anna) to visit the spot after the wall and fence were in place. Both remembered well the great kindness of the big man. (John C. Bierbaum)

This biography of Bierbaum from an 1882 book about Clayton County notes:
“John C. Bierbaum, farmer, section 33, Garnavillo Township, was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1828. He left his native country for America in 1845, and located in the State of Ohio, where he resided until 1846, when he became a resident of Clayton County. (source: History of Clayton County, Iowa. Chicago: Inter-State Publishing Co., 1882, p. 803 - transcribed by Sally Scarff and Marlene Chaney) (Note: the 1882 bio states he purchased the 80 acres from McClelland in Oct. 1851, but the land records (below) have a date in Mar. 1862, it's possible there was another transaction of some sort during that decade)

The land records at the Clayton County Recorder’s office show that on March 29, 1862* (see Note in above paragraph), James and Elizabeth McClelland Davis sold the eighty acres in Section 33 to John Bierbaum. He also purchased the forty acres in Section 27.
(source: Book T, Page 494, 27-93-3, 33-93-3)

When James and Elizabeth McClelland Davis sold the land in Section 33 where the McCleland Cemetery is located, they made sure that the gravesite of James A McClelland was protected and accessible. It is curious that no mention is made of Juliet’s gravesite.

The following selections from the official document describe the land transfer:

“Know all Men by these Presents that James Davis and Elizabeth his wife of Clayton County and State of Iowa in consideration of the sum of Two Thousand Six Hundred Dollars in hand paid by John Christopher Bierbaum of the County and State aforesaid, do herby sell and convey in to said Johan Christopher Bierbaum and to his heirs and assigns the following described premises…of Section twenty–seven…and of Section thirty–three… Reserving from the last described piece (Section thirty-three), one eighth of an acre of land in square form, the headstone of the grave of James A. McClelland being the center, together with right of agress and egress to and from the same at all times….”

Signed 20th day of March 1862
James Davis Elizabeth Davis
Filed for record June 26, 1862
(source = Book T, Page 494, 27-93- 3, 33-93-3)

2016 - The McCleland Cemetery – Commentary

In March 2016, I contacted June Wolter, Assistant Librarian at the Garnavillo Public Library and inquired if there was a McCleland Cemetery. She suggested that I contact Julia Coughlin who lives next to the cemetery.

Julia described how over the years the cemetery had gone into disrepair – the tombstones had fallen over, the wall had begun to crumble and the tree roots were causing the earth to buckle.

copyright Julia Coughlin, photographer, 2016 - used with permission
Remnants of the stone wall surrounding the cemetery
©2016 Julia Coughlin


copyright Julia Coughlin, photographer, 2016 - used with permission
Remnants of the stone wall surrounding the cemetery
©2016 Julia Coughlin

Julia arranged for the tombstones to be set upright in concrete.

James A McCleland is visible on his tombstone but much of the rest of the inscription has worn away. I calculated his birth year (1790) from his 1851 application for a Bounty Land Warrant. The application states that he was sixty-years old on February 4, 1851. Juliet recorded his date of death (April 20, 1851) at the Office of the District Court in Garnavillo on May 3, 1851. (source: McClelland documents)

Juliet’s tombstone is not as worn. It reads:

JULIET Wife of James A. McCleland. DIED Jan. 28, 1855. Aged 56 Y

Thus, she was born in 1799.

Myra Voss of the Clayton County Pioneer Cemetery Commission said that they had installed the McCleland Cemetery sign in about 2004.

Julia sent me photos of the remnants of the stone wall that Anna Woodbridge Quigley had had built sometime after her mother’s death in 1855. She also sent photos of the tombstones; the large tree; and, most impressive of all, the tall entry gate with the name McCleland spelled out.

Julia Coughlin runs a Bed and Breakfast – The Red Brick Inn in Garnavillo, Iowa.



November 2022 - McCleland Cemetery clean-up

~The clean-up photos were contributed by Ellen Collins, Pioneer Cemetery Commission member.

Members the Clayton County Pioneer Cemetery Commission gathered several times during November 2022 to tidy up the cemetery. The group removed a lot of brush, weeds and dead limbs on the ground surrounding the area as well as removing dead limbs on the tree. The men put up a fence that surrounds the gravestones of James and Juliet.

copyright Ellen Collins, 2022 - used with permission
©Ellen Collins, 2022

L - R:  Lee Embretson, CCPCC chairperson, Ellen Collins and her husband Bruce Collins. Ellen gathers the historical information on cemeteries they work on. Bruce is the secretary-treasurer of the organization. Also at the work day was Lee's son Josh.

copyright Ellen Collins, 2022 - used with permission
©Ellen Collins, 2022

L-R: Lee Embretson, Josh Embretson and Bruce Collins.

copyright Ellen Collins, 2022 - used with permission
©Ellen Collins, 2022

The remnants of the stone wall are mostly around the tree.  James' stone has some heaving to it but is not severe.  Ellen moved his foot stone on the base of his headstone.



May 2023 - Restoration

The cemetery clean-up in the Fall of 2022 made it possible for Frank Phippen and his crew - James Harbaugh, David Beck and Mark Beck - to work at the cemetery. They repaired, painted and reinstalled the McCleland sign, set the bronze markers in a cement base and straightened the tombstones.

The Veterans Administration provided James' bronze plaque. Nancy Bleil, James and Juliet’s great-great-granddaughter, decided that Juliet should also have a marker and obtained one.


©Ellen Collins, 2023

©Ellen Collins, 2023
James A. McCleland
Capt PA Volunteers
Light Dragoons
War of 1812
1790 - Apr 20, 1851
©Ellen Collins, 2023
Juliet G. McCleland
Wife Mother Teacher
Buried on her farm
1799 - Jan 28, 1855



©Ellen Collins, 2023

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