III. Records of Burials in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery

 

Known in the 20th century as the “(Old) Pleasant Hill (Methodist) Cemetery”, both the church and the cemetery have been lost; the cemetery was destroyed in 1967, and only a few ‘cemetery survey’ records can be found. Fortunately, these secondary records include four different ‘eye-witness’ accounts of the graves in the cemetery, all made before the cemetery was plowed under and lost:

 

1. Papers found in the Phillips Estate, identifying 19 people and 20 graves (one grave is “nameless”),

    and including a sketch map of the known grave locations [source Note 1] (see Appendix 1);

 

2. Mrs. Ennis Johnson, who lived on the property, and reported 21 names [Note 2] (see Appendix 2);

 

3. An earlier survey (before 1964), found at the Indiana State Library [3] (see Appendix 3); and

 

4. On-site research at the cemetery by Louise McAninch in 1963, and the six photographs that she

    took at the cemetery in 1963 [Note 4] (see Appendix 4).

 

Both the Phillips Estate papers [1] and Mrs. Johnson’s list [2] agree with other (external) sources, and additional information has revealed three notable mistakes on the original hand-written ‘short list’ [3a1]:

 

1. addition of Anna M. King, wife of John King, as corrected by Mark Accas’ note in 1977 [3a2] [48]

(and, an updated fourteen-name ‘short list’ is available at the Plainfield Public Library) [5] [5g] [5h];

 

2. Isabelle McAninch is the (first) wife of Enoch George McAninch, not “wife of John McAninch”, which is recorded correctly by the other eye-witness sources [1] [2] [4a2 photo] [4b letter], and

 

3. Samuel McAninch, died 30 July 1859, is indeed “Samuel” McAninch, not “Ernest” McAninch; the name Samuel is also recorded correctly by the other eye-witness sources [1] [2] [4a5 photo] [4b letter].

 

These four sources are discussed in “Analysis and Evaluation of the Pleasant Hill Cemetery Sources”, in the next section, below.

 

 

“Old Pleasant Hill Methodist Cemetery”, Copyright 2003, by Frank McAninch       page 9 of 68

Permission granted to copy freely for any non-commercial purpose except copyrights owned by others

 

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