Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
NORTH WEBSTER - A "lost" family cemetery near North Webster has not only been found, it has been cleaned up and made respectable again.
Gravestones, some dating from the Civil War era, are now visible and in remarkably good shape. Thanks to Kosciusko Superior Court II Judge James Jarrette and his community service program for juvenile or underage offenders, the dense undergrowth that hid the graves is now gone and grass will soon be planted.
Originally notified by Tippecanoe Township trustee Dick Mitchell of the cemetery's existence and the need to clean it up, Jarrette arranged for a group of 18 to 20 kids to work four Saturdays clearing brush, cutting down small trees and branches, pulling weeds and cleaning up the area.
Mitchell said the cemetery is an old family plot for the Shock family, and it's deep in the wood on private property.
"We've been wanting to get control of it so we could maintain it," he said.
Jarrette and Warsaw police captain Steve Foster checked out the cemetery before bringing the kids out to work on it, and they spent their share of time helping cut trees and hauling brush to trucks.
Several of the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department reserves volunteered their free time on Saturdays to help supervise the kids and to transport them to and from the worksite, Jarrette said.
The county highway department also loaned Jarrette a truck to haul out the loads of brush the kids cleared from the cemetery.
The approximately 60 gravestones, though worn and weathered, are still legible and tell a story of several generations.
For example, there's Lany, wife of Ephraly Brumbaugh. She died on Dec. 21, 1901, at the age of 71 years. And on the other side of the towering tombstone are mentioned three sons: Adam, who died at eight days, John, who died when he was two days old, and Laster, who was three months old when he died.
Or the grave of someone whose last name was Jacobson, and who died in 1860 when he was "aged about 74 years."
The most recent gravestone belongs to Isaiah Shock, who was born in 1826 and died in 1910.
Jarrette said community service crews have restored four cemeteries so far, including three near Silver Lake.
"This one needed the most extensive work," he said. "This was truly a lost cemetery."
Mitchell has contacted several family members related to the people buried there, and said the relatives are interested in fencing the cemetery and sowing grass seed.
"If the family members don't donate the grass seed, the township will," Mitchell said.
