LIGGET-CUPPY PRIVATE BURIAL-GROUND

Said to be have been called the “Ligget-Tucker or Tucker-Ligget cemetery”

  This report by R. B. Whitsett, Jr. of L’Anguille Valley Memorial Association’s Committee on Cemetery Research, Logansport, Indiana. After the search for information, interviewing of several persons [some of whom are mentioned in this report], examination of all known records & correspondence. July 18, 1941.   

This long-abandoned, no-longer-identifiable & almost forgotten little pioneer cemetery is situated at the center of Section 35 of N.W. TIPTON Township, N.E. CASS County of N-Central, INDIANA. [CAUTION: This Tipton Twp., contains 2 separate sections numbered 35.]

Cemetery is south of the Logansport Country Club golf course which is about 1 mile S.S.W. of  “Cass Station” concrete bridge that spans the Wabash River, 1/2 mile east of the Washington township-line & 1/2 mile W. of the Wa-pa-pe-shee Indian Reserve. Cemetery is about 2 miles N.N.E. of the hamlet of Anoka . It is about 1 mile south of the west end of Cedar Island , which lies in the Wabash River just west of  Cass Station bridge.

The remains of ---& in at least some instances, also monuments for ---the following persons and it’s said maybe a dozen or more other persons who’s names have been lost to us were disinterred during the late 1870’s or early 1880’s & were removed to SHAFF & the HAHN-ANOKA Cemeteries & perhaps two persons being re-interred at the Elmore Uhl farm [S.E.] of Kienly’s Island. This mass removal was conducted by a group of interested citizens in this locality, among whom were W.P. Louthain, William Woodling, Daniel Phillips, David Cuppy & a host of other relatives, neighbors & friends of the deceased.

Much of the data in this report is by the late, local historian, Dr. Jehu Z. Powell; from the late David Cuppy who had lived near the 18^th St. Bridge over the Wabash ; Additional new material has been gleaned by the L’Anguille committee via Mrs. Leonard R. [Woodling] BLAKE [daughter of the late Wm. Woodling,  niece of the late Daniel Phillips & granddaughter of the late William P. Louthain], all of whom were mentioned above.

Mrs. Blake was born within a stone’s throw of this little cemetery & has resided there for many years. As a child, she knew this cemetery & its story extremely well. When the cemetery was vacated in 1879-1880, she was a child of eight or nine. In addition to supplying the names of those who were buried here, she also was able to provide some interesting anecdotes that she heard from her father, uncle & grandfather concerning the reverent disinterment of all marked & unmarked graves that were known to them. Also, acknowledging that there may still be unknown remains [in unmarked & unrecorded] graves of persons still buried here.

Additional information was gleaned from Abraham Butler who lived about 2 miles east of this little cemetery & professed to remember two or three slabs located N.W. of Sec. 35’s midpoint & N of the e-to-w road which today cuts directly across the cemetery, [previously this road went just south of the cemetery. Mr. Butler was interviewed by Roy Stackhouse who also had lived in this vicinity but now lives in Denver , Miami Co., IN.

Alexander Liggett/Ligget: Logansport Court House: Will Record 2, p.4 source of  d.o.d. & wife’s name as Mary, a son John, etc.

Nerritt, Mollie: Said to have been very attractive young woman. Her casket was opened at the time of the disinterment.

Cuppy, Abraham: A pioneer of this region was said to have been a Captain of a passenger-packet on the Old Wabash & Erie Canal. Well known in West Lafayette, Tippecanoe Co., IN.

 Tucker: An Elusive tradition says that a man of this surname hanged himself about 1847 during or about the Mexican War era.   Marion Floy [aged 80] of Mexico , IN professes to have been told in about 1900 by an unnamed, aged citizen about this “Tucker suicide & interment” and to have heard that this was called the Tucker-Ligget or Liggett-Tucker Cemetery .

     There was erected on or adjoining this little cemetery, a one room log-school house. Some of the late, former teachers during are said to have been, Mssrs. [-----] of KY; John McGrew; Aaron Puterbaugh, James McGrew & Lewis Jack. The late B.F. Louthain, a widely known newspaper publisher is said to have been a former pupil of this school. Toward the close of the Civil War [1865/1866] this little school was razed & in the course of years, the advisability of abandoning & vacating this lonely little cemetery was increasingly felt by persons in this locality.

  In 1862 a map of Cass County shows a tiny square in the S.W. corner of the N.E.1/4 of this section 35; but the schoolhouse, yard & cemetery are said to have been not just on this N.E. side but on ALL FOUR sides of  the center point of section 35. Today it is said that there are no signs of a cemetery ever having been located here as the east-to-west county highway passes directly across it & most if not all of the remainder has been farmed over.

This report was input by Pat Fiscel March 2007 for the Cass County INGenWeb Project.

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