Caring For Hamilton County’s Pioneer Cemeteries

From Time to Thyme

By Paula Dunn

This Memorial Day weekend, Hamilton County’s larger cemeteries will undoubtedly be filled with people observing the holiday by laying flowers and mementoes on the graves of soldiers who’ve paid the ultimate price for maintaining our freedom.

Those aren’t the only cemeteries where veterans of our country’s wars have been laid to rest, though. This county is dotted with a number of small pioneer cemeteries where the graves of veterans of the Civil War, the War of 1812 and even the American Revolution can be found.

Did you ever wonder who takes care of those less visited graveyards?

That would be the Hamilton County Cemetery Commission.

The HCCC dates back to 1975, when the Indiana State Legislature authorized the creation of county cemetery commissions for the purpose of identifying, restoring and maintaining historic, and often neglected, cemeteries established before 1850.

That year Noblesville attorney Joseph G. Roberts and Joe Burgess, the future Hamilton County Historian, appeared before the Hamilton County Commissioners to request that such a commission be created for this county.

Roberts, whom the Noblesville Daily Ledger observed had been “active in historical affairs for a number of years,” stated that he was aware of several small graveyards that had already been lost to farming, land development or vandals. He wanted to save those that still existed.

Roberts and Burgess proposed the establishment of a five-member board that would be responsible for providing the upkeep for the early graveyards.

A couple of months later, the county commissioners officially created the Hamilton County Cemetery Commission to supervise the maintenance of pre-1850 cemeteries not currently under the care of other people or groups.

Joe Burgess was the perfect person to head the HCCC. As chairman of the county’s Civil War Centennial Committee in the 1960s, he’d already collected an enormous amount of information on the burial sites of hundreds of this county’s Civil War veterans.

(You can find that information and much more in his book, “Hamilton County and the Civil War.”)

Burgess went on to serve as chairman of the HCCC for 30 years, retiring from the position in 2006. During that time he became THE source for information about Hamilton County’s old abandoned cemeteries. Sometimes he even discovered lost graveyards himself.

A 2006 Noblesville Daily Ledger article described how he’d uncovered a cemetery that dated back to the 1820s in a Wayne Township farmer’s field, using a pole to locate markers that had sunk into the ground. The cemetery contained 15 graves belonging to the pioneer Finch family.

Currently, there are 117 known cemeteries in this county. Around 30 of them are owned by the county itself.

In accordance with the 1975 law, the HCCC works with the township trustees to see that all of this county’s inactive pre-1850 cemeteries are kept in good condition, either by the trustees, the HCCC, or by the person or organization that owns the property. (The HCCC also assists the trustees in caring for some cemeteries created prior to 1870.)

The five members of the HCCC are volunteers who serve staggered five-year terms, with one appointment being made each year by the County Board of Commissioners, usually based upon recommendations from current Cemetery Commission members.

The money for all that mowing, signage, stone resetting, tree cutting, access maintenance, fence reconstruction and other necessities comes out of the County Board of Commissioners’ budget.

I can personally vouch for the good work of the HCCC. A few years ago when I was doing research for  “A Brief History of Noblesville,” Lisa Hayner and I visited each of the Noblesville Township cemeteries. They were all clearly marked and well maintained, whether they were on a main thoroughfare, or half hidden in a farmer’s field.

Thanks to current HCCC board member, Nancy Massey, for her information and research.

Paula Dunn’s From Time to Thyme column appears on Wednesdays in The Times. Contact her at younggardenerfriend@gmail.com