Logansport State Hospital Cemetery
(The
new cemetery-1940)
Sometimes called Longcliff
Cemetery
(or "Northern Indiana Hospital Cemetery).
NW
1/4, section 34, Township 27 North, Range 1 East, (of second Indiana
principal Meridian), in northeastern Clinton Township, Cass County,
Indiana, Immediately south of the east-and-west "River Road" (an
extension westward of Logansport's "Cliff Drive") which runs along the
south bank
of Wabash River; and immediately East of a now abandoned (and closed)
former north-and-south road once commonly known as "Lovers
Lane".
Nearly 300 feet long (north to south) this cemetery is (1940) less than
half that in width (East and West); though "growing" Eastward (into
cultivated fields). This "patients' Cemetery" though containing
hundreds of graves, and a number of metal "undertakers' markers," and
about thirty
various-sized trees (various species of the Pinus family), has --- on
May 26, 1940 ------ only two monuments. One, near northwest corner of
cemetery, is a rather odd-looking stone about 40 inches high and 5
inches thick, and of varying widths, reading:
L:
H. S Simion Dinu
D.
1915 |
To
the southeastward of Dinu Monument, is this cemetery's only monument, a
granite headstone for Wm. Carney Born 1850 Died 1929. |
Scores of the other
graves are marked with slender painted (white) wooden slabs, each of
which ---- in varying stages of legibility ---- gives a number (such as
"12,358"), But no name, dates, nor other information. (Presumably the
institution's Administration Building has detailed records for each or
most of these.) The inscriptions on the cards in most of the metal
markers (which appear on so many graves) are in pen-and-ink, and,
though framed in Glass and Metal, are in most cases aged or
weathered beyond the point of legibility. The following ones, however,
were found to be more or less distinctly legible:
Name | Died | Remarks |
Christian H. Cless | 12 - 7 - 1930 | Aged 77 - 7 - 28? McCloskey, undertaker |
Anton Bedan | 12 - 1 - 1930 | Aged 60 |
Frank H. Retshmark | 8 - 30 - 19(30?) | Aged 69 yrs., 4 mo |
Peter Duvandzyd | 6 - 21 - 1930 | |
Nick Vonya | 10 - 23 - 1931 | Aged (36?) - 2 - (27 or 22) |
Henry M. Elfert | 2 - 9 - 1932 |
Persons wishing to visit this cemetery are advised
to obtain permission at the hospital's administration building before
doing so. (Workmen encountered in this cemetery are apt to be patients
who have been legally ajudged insane.
[Patients no longer work on the grounds of the hospital - 2007.]
See Separate Report for the old (or earlier) Longcliff
(Logansport State Hospital) Cemetery, and also separate reports for
Neff and
Young
(or Young - Shanklin) cemeteries.
L'Anguille Valley Memorial Association Logansport, Indiana transcribed
in
2007 by Rebecca Miller for the Cass County INGenWeb Project.
Here are 40 - 50 markers engraved with names
and dates, but just piled
in the
corner of the cemetery. Most of these appear to be from the 1920s and
1930s. In
the background you can see the State Hospital.
Most grave markers, like this one, at the Logansport State Hospital are intended to be level with the ground.
The Old
Longcliff Cemetery
The first or original, and former (now Long-abandoned and practically forgotten) patient's cemetery at Logansport State Hospital at Longcliff, Clinton Township, Cass County, Indiana. This cemetery does not seem to appear on any or even the older maps or plats of this region; but fieldwork-observations, coupled with study of modern maps and also aerial photographs, seems to indicate that it is in N. W. 1/4 of S. W. 1/4 of FRACTIONAL SECTON 34 T 27 N, R 1 E, 2 p.m. Indiana. it is 1 /14 miles west of Logansport's (Shultztown's) West st.
Report
by R. B. Whitsett, Jr., Chairman, L'Anguille Valley Memorial,
Association's Committee on Cemetery Research, 500 Front St.,
Logansport, Ind.
May 29, 1940
(Fieldwork was done May 26 and May 28, 1940.)
The
large (two-thousand-patient) institution now known as "Logansport State
Hospital," First opened its doors (for the
receipt of patients on July 1, 1888, more than half a century ago. With
the first patient who died (following the opening of the Hospital), we
are not here concerned. Two months elapsed before any patient died
whose remains were not removed by his
relatives or friends: ---- On Sept 3, 1888, occurred the death of Mr.
Jacob Lang, aged 41, who had been a farmer in the Mt. Vernon vicinity
of Posey County, in the extreme Southwest corner of Indiana, and who
had been enrolled --- on Aug 21, 1888 as "patient no 195." It is
doubtful whether embalming was practiced at so early a date, and
perhaps partly because it did not seem very practicable in such hot
weather, to ship a body ------ packed in ice ---- so great a distance
and into a distance and into a region which presumably had few if any
railroads, the Posey County Clerk seems to have directed, or
recommended, that interment be made on the Hospital Grounds.
Accordingly, Mr. Jacob Lang, as "interment no. one" was laid to rest at
a suitable spot in the woods at what was then the West edge of the
hospital grounds. The present writer has failed in his efforts to
verify an elusive tradition that the hospital authorities had selected
this particular woods (for their institution's burial ground) because
of its (allegedly) having already contained a few graves, and a couple
of little slab-monuments, of some forgotten little pioneer family
burial
ground.
Although the late Cass County Historian, the ubiquitous Dr.
J. Z. Powell, ----- Himself a Logansport physician who often visited
this hospital ---- seems somehow to have gotten hold of and examined
some records concerning this old Hospital Cemetery (records which now
unfortunately seem to be destroyed or lost), he seems to have been
uninformed --- except in a very general way ---- as to the cemetery's
location. Because all the monuments and other markers, the fence and
certain other landmarks have long since entirely disappeared (
following the cemetery's abandonment in 1890. And because the
hospital's grounds have expanded enormously, and undergone radical
changes, during the past half century, changes which have confused or
bewildered many of even the oldest of the region's " old-timers," the
present writer found it exceedingly
difficult to locate this cemetery at all. Connecting the River Road
("Cuff
Drive") with the likewise East-and-West- Running Murphy (or "Back")
Road, There formerly was a North-And-South public highway known, in
this Clinton Township region, as "the lovers lane road," which has long
been closed, and abandoned, and is now almost forgotten but the route
of which can still be detected (though now over grown with grass where
not converted into cultivated fields), and can even be followed, ---
that is by anyone armed with a written permit, and not averse to
climbing a number of barbed-wire (and other) fences and wading through
one swamp and also one fair-sized creek, and climbing a long and rather
steep hill or two. Like the new (or present) hospital cemetery, the
older (1888 - 1891) one lies immediately east of this old "Lovers lane"
route; but unlike the new cemetery, which is in the bottomlands ( and
immediately south of the River Road), the older cemetery is at the very
highest point between the River Road and the Murphy Road, it is 27/100
miles (more than 1/4 mile) south of the "River Road" and about 2/5 mile
North of the Murphy Road. It is in the extreme South-West corner of a
small and open but rough-surfaced, woods, which is on
a sort of plateau lying south and also west of the hollow of the
Longcliff
Creek.
It is immediately North of the Northwest corner of a 4-acre
field (now a meadow). Though containing today no monuments nor other
grave-markers of any sort. This little cemetery was finally
successfully searched out for, and obligingly pointed out to, the
writer by the venerable Mr. Gus Minx, one of the exceedingly few
members of the hospital-staff whose tenure goes back to this
institution's early days. The spot he designates conforms with oral
testimony of three or four other persons (who,
however because of advanced age and health, etc... were unable to visit
this not-very-easily-accessible spot); and is further confirmed by the
present writer's finding more than a dozen easily over looked but
unmistakable (sunken) graves, and some rusted fragments of wire nailed
to certain trees (which seem to have served as fence-posts). Also there
is here some suggestion of at least a few possible disinterments, but
of many years ago. Also, in exploring the tall grass or weed-covered
site (in quest of fallen tombstones), the writer found one fallen
fence-post, to which are likewise attached pieces of rusted
wire-fencing. Also, a few smooth fragments of what may be (but might
not be) old slab-tombstones (now missing).
This old (or original) Longcliff cemetery was entirely
abandoned in 1891, three years after its establishment;-and abandoned
for the seemingly good (and entirely sufficient) reason that workmen,
in digging graves, increasingly complained of striking solid limestone
(or other rock) only a few feet beneath the surface of the ground.
The present (1940) hospital staff seems unable at this late
date to locate any plat or other record concerning this particular very
old cemetery (though finding seemingly complete records and plats of
the 1891 cemetery which supplanted it); and tediously searching through
their hundreds of old (multi-paged!) 1888-91 "patient records" (all in
longhand) does not seem feasible to the present (entirely unsalaried)
worker. But the late Dr. J. Z. Powell, and dependable Cass County
Historian who, having been himself a physician, often visited this
hospital) seems to have found and examined them nearly a quarter of a
century ago, and interestedly made from them a note (found by the
present writer) to the effect that "Fifty persons" had been buried in
the old Longcliff patients cemetery before its abandonment in 1891 and
its being supplanted by
the "New Cemetery" several hundred yards to the North, near the
river."
The "Lover's Lane" Route runs south from the "River Road"
(passing along side and just west of the New Hospital Cemetery, crosses
Longcliff Creek, climbs to the Wabash river's south
terrace-rim and passes the old cemetery, descends into a swale, then
climbs out of it, finally reaching the East-to-West
"Murphy Road" just west of the point where the Pennsylvania Railroad
track crosses said "Murphy Road" The Old Longcliff
Cemetery is in a very remote portion of the hospital's far flung woodsy
campus or grounds; and visiting it (or its vicinity) is absolutely
prohibited except on express permit issued by the medical
superintendent.
The best way, probably, to reach the cemetery today (1940),
is from the North-and-south, creek-hollow which lies directly below and
just west of new ward building "M & N," which (creek-hollow) is
traversed by a North-to-south truck-drive, and which (creek-hollow)
contains the institution's large swine-barn or community hog-house (and
slaughter-house). Westward out of this hollow at a point just west of
the buildings mentioned, one follows a lane westward (on high ground),
with a
westward-running barbed-wire fence on one's right (North), until one
reaches a wide gate, which opens into large cultivated field instead of
entering this gate or field, one should turn left (south) on the (here
grassy) south-bound "Lovers' Lane" Route. Just before reaching the
south end (and southwest corner) of cemetery woods," and
meadow just before reaching
the 4-acre meadow's northwest corner (and a 4x4x4 ft. boulder. One
passes the old cemetery, which is in the woods at one's left (east). A
fuller description of the old cemetery's
location (including distances) has been furnished the Logansport State
Hospital Authorities by the Pioneer-cemetery research committee of
L'Anguille
Valley Memorial
Association
Logansport, Indiana
(end of report)
Logansport
State Hospital
1098 South State Road 25
Logansport, IN 46947
phone: (574) 722-4141
Transcription of L'Anguille Valley Memorial Association Reports by Rebecca Miller, February 2007.
Logansport
State Hospital Cemetery Clinton
Twp, Cass Co.
Photos by Debby
Beheler, May 2000