There are other cemeteries connected with religious, social and benevolent institutions, whose histories have a direct connection with the institutions themselves, not being of a public character. Among these are the Ashduth Vesholom Congregation, Jewish ; the St. John's German Lutheran; and St. Paul's also German Lutheran.
GRAVEYARDS.
Immediately south of Wayne’s fort, what is now Taber’s Addition, was the burial place connected with the garrison, but was, also, a general burial place Another place of burial was at the northwest corner of Columbia and Clinton streets and immediately to the westward thereof.
Another was located where the basin of the canal crosses Harrison street; this, however, was an Indian burial place. Mr. Price, in his History of Fort Wayne (p. 284), says of this place, “ and often had been seen, years ago, swinging from the bough of a tree, or in a hammock stretched between two trees, the infant of the Indian mother; or a few little log inclosures, where the bodies of adults sat upright, with all their former apparel wrapped about them, and their tunkets, tomahawks, etc., by their side, could be seen at any time for many years by the few pale-faces visiting or sojourning here.”
Another burial-place, used by the French and Indians, was located immediately east of the Methodist College and south of Wayne street, Rockhill street was run through this ground. [Brice, p. 316-317.]
Messrs. Barr & McCorkle, proprietors of Fort Wayne, in making their appropriation of lands for public purposes, set apart a tract four rods square as a free place of burial, and for church purposes. [Brice, p. 294.] This tract was located west of the present site of the Jail, and immediately north of Water street. “ In subsequent years, Judge Hanna having purchased all the Barr & McCorkle claims here, and the lots donated, as in the foregoing, being laid off by Mr. Hanna as a part of the place for general building purposes, the dead of the graveyard were, in 1837, removed at public expense or by loved friends, to the general cemetery west of Fort Wayne,” on Broadway. [Brice, p. 294.]
Alexander Ewing and wife, two of the very early settlers of Fort Wayne, were first buried on the north side of Water street, about where Ewing street crosses, his residence being located immediately west, on what is now Lot No. 1, of Ewing s Addition, west of Ewing street. They were subsequently removed, however, to the Ewing family vault, in the cemetery on Broadway.
Judge Archer was of Scotch-Irish descent, of the Protestant faith, a whig in politics, of intellectual and moral sturdiness, and many mourned his loss when he died at Fort Wayne in 1833. The Masons, to which order he belonged, buried him in the old grave yard where the county jail now stands. His remains and those of his wife, who was a native of one of the Carolinas, and some grandchildren were afterward removed to the Broadway cemetery, but now nothing remains to mark their resting place.
(3) Me-te-a died in Fort Wayne in 1827. The late Louis Peltier made the casket in which the body was buried. Peltier, who was born within the walls of the old fort, in 1815, conceived brush to grain the coffin.' " the idea of his life work while assisting to remove the skeletons of the fort soldiers from the military cemetery which was situated in the region of the "junction of the present Berry and Clay streets. This was while Mr. Peltier still was in his teens, and was engaged in learning the carpenter and cabinet- making trade with James Wilcox, whose shop was also the first under-taking establishment in Fort Wayne. In the beginning the undertaker was also the coffinmaker. The first person whose body Louis Peltier made the burial casket was Chief Me-te-a, whose tragic death was the result of taking - poison while conversing with friends in the silversmith shop of "Father" Be- quette. From the January (1880) issue of "The Casket," an undertakers' Jour-nal Published at Rochester, N. Y., the following interesting additional Infor-mation is taken:
"The coffine was of poplar and, as staing material was scarce at that time, Dr. Cushman furnished Venetian red. 'To gain the dark colr', said Mr. Petier, 'we burned oat straw and then secured General Tipton's whitewash brush to grain the coffin.'"
Soon after the burial of Me-te-a, Dr. Lewis G. Thompson had the body ex-humed in order to make an examination of the remains. "A noise was heard." says the late John W. Dawson, "which the company thought to be Indians: and. as they knew the savages were greatly hostile to such disinterments, they were at once panic stricken, and, quickly blowing out their lights, fled to the brush to await the denouement. False as the alarm proved to be. they were nevertheless suspicious of the nearness of danger. So, returning to the grave, they re-buried the body."
More important than all other matters to come before the county commissioners in 1824, was the proposition of John T. Barr and John McCorkle, proprietors of the town plat which they had laid out in August. It included the offer to pay into the treasury of the county $500 cash, and to donate to the county "all of that oblong square piece of ground situate and being in the town of Fort Wayne aforesaid, and stained red on the plat of said town, as recorded in the recorder's office of Randolph county in said state [the present courthouse square] , which is granted as a public square, whereon public buildings for said county are to be erected, and bounded by Main, Court, Berry and Calhoun streets." The offer included also a lot at the northwest corner of the plat, four rods square, "for a church, to be of no particular denomination, but free to all," the unoccupied portion of which was to be used for a burial ground. In 1838 and 1839, Samuel Hanna, who purchased all of the unsold and unappropriated portion of the Barr and McCorkle holdings, arranged for the removal of the bodies of those buried in this cemetery to a new burial place (the present McCulloch park). The remains of one person, over-looked in the process of removing the bodies, were unearthed in April, 1916 — seventy-seven years after the cemetery had been abandoned. [Map of the Original Plat is shown on page 267]
John W. Dawson says that in 1838 the county seminary "was an old brick schoolhouse" with "a cemetery surrounding it. with rude palings and other plain marks of affection around the graves of the buried pioneers."
SAR PATRIOT MARKER: as read by Seth Bradtmueller during the Patriot Grave Marking of Colonel Alexander Ewing on 16 September 2023 in Ft. Wayne, IN.
The center of the SAR Patriot Grave Marker contains a picture of a Minute Man; the first volunteer for the American Revolution. He was ready to go “at a minute’s notice.”
The Minute Man is surrounded by 13 stars which represents the original 13 colonies.
The date of 1775 is the generally agreed upon date of the start of the American revolution.
The term “Patriot” at the bottom of the marker signifies someone that served or supported the American Revolution.
Finally, the Grave Marker contains the letters “S”, “A” and “R” which stand for the recognizing organization, the Sons of the American Revolution.
Cemetery Keeps Traditions of Education, Celebration Thriving by 89.1 WBOI published November 2, 2015 on wboi.org. Includes a 5-minute audio interview of WBOI's Katy Anderson with the Lindenwood Cemetery's general manager, Tom Pehlke, to talk about the history of Lindenwood Cemetery and its place in the community from the earliest Fort Wayne cemetery where the current Allen County Jail was located in 2015 to the Broadway Cemetery to the founding of Lindenwood Cemetery.
This is one of the most heavily researched pieces I've written. It was fun to be able to travel to these historic sites and conduct some scavenger hunt research over the last two months!
A December 15, 2021 comment to the post said missing tombstones from the Archer Cemetery near the Allen County Memorial Coliseum may be somewhere in the coliseum. Anyone know anything. This is also known as the Johnny Appleseed Graveyard.
I loved working on this story over the past month! It was an idea I came into my position with hopes of writing and I’m so excited to see it come to fruition.
Allen County’s three most recent unidentified decedents, known to the coroner’s office as Mary Jane Doe, John River Doe and Baby John Doe, have gone without their true identity for decades. With recent advances in technology and funding to support DNA testing in one of the cases, Deputy Coroner Chris Meihls hopes to bring closure to these cases and hopefully to families who don’t know their loved one’s whereabouts.
There were two similar new articles published with this plus an update to a 2019 newspaper article:
Search for John – and Jane – Does' identities continues decades later , Corryn Brock | The Journal Gazette, April 22, 2023 Found in the 1990s and early 2000s, they are the most recent of more than 60 unidentified decedents in Allen County dating back to the 1800s, according to Allen County Deputy Coroner Chris Meihls. With advancements in technology helping make connections between the unidentified dead and the living, Meihls said he hopes to return their identities to them.
DNA plays crucial role in closing unidentified decedent cases Corryn Brock April 22, 2023 in The Journal Gazette newspaper. Cece Moore is chief genetic genealogist for Parabon Nanolabs. She might be best-known locally for helping police identify the killer of 8-year-old April Tinsley, of Fort Wayne, who was killed April 1, 1988. We have information on April Tinsley who was killed in 1988.
New attempt to ID woman found in '92 Body discovered in basement; she was 6 months pregnant Ashley Sloboda, August 6, 2019, Updated Apr 20, 2023 in The Journal Gazette newspaper. Renewed efforts to identify a woman found 27 years ago in a southeast Fort Wayne basement have led to new information about her, including she was six months pregnant, according to the Allen County coroner Monday. The coroner's office also released photographs of a clay facial reconstruction of the woman, who was buried in Lindenwood Cemetery as Mary Jane Doe. A contractor renovating a water-filled basement in the 3500 block of Reynolds Street found the woman in May 1992, but the coroner said she likely died in late 1991 or early 1992 based on the condition of her remains.
Look who just got bigger and better! With nearly 5 million more heroes now added to #Veterans Legacy Memorial from private and other cemeteries throughout the United States and abroad, finding YOUR Veterans is easier than ever. This Veterans Day, go to www.va.gov/remember and join the thousands of family members and others who have shared memories, told stories, and honored those who have served our Nation. #Legacy
VLM is an online memorial that allows family and friends to share lasting memories by uploading written tributes, photos, biographies, documents and other information to Veteran’s memorial pages.
This November the Veterans Legacy Memorial website has doubled in size by adding nearly 5 million Veterans and servicemembers buried in private and other non-VA cemeteries.
With this expansion, VLM now has nearly 10 million Veteran pages, including those buried in state and tribal cemeteries and National Park Service cemeteries.
