Pioneer Cemeteries and Their Stories,

Madison County, Indiana

Curtis Cemetery

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Richland Township

Location: north side of CR 450N, 1/4 mile west of CR 300E

 

John K. Meriman's stone is the only legible one of the three remaining in the Curtis pioneer cemetery.  Still crisp after 150 plus years, the inscription says that John died Dec. 7, 1858, at fifty years of age.  The Curtis Cemetery was named for the owner of the land at the time of the first burials, Elisha Curtis, who purchased this property in 1833.  A "L & M Curtis" is shown on the 1876 plat map for Richland Township as still owning sixty-five acres on CR 450N near the site of this cemetery.  As the pictures show, the stones and the people they represent rest on a wooded hilltop.  The exact number and names of others buried here are unknown at this time.

 

In 2009, excavators for a new home just north of the cemetery uncovered this preserved stone for "Sarah wife of Elisha Curtis died Aug. 11, 1838, aged 80Y 8M 16D."