Shideler Cemetery  

In eastern CLINTON TOWNSHIP of southwestern CASS COUNTY ,

And less than three-quarters of a mile west of the Washington Township line.

   Sometimes called the New, or Abraham Shideler Cemetery to distinguish it from St. John’s Cemetery (only two miles N.W., which latter Cemetery was formerly known as the old, or the Elias, Shideler Cemetery .

   This cemetery is approximately 2 ½ miles S.W. of the City of Logansport ’s Cicott Street Bridge (over Wabash River ), and about that same distance E.N.E. of the town of Clymers , Indiana .

   Cemetery is about 200 feet east of the S.W. corner of the S.E. quarter of the S.W. quarter of Section Three (3) of Congressional Township 26 North of Range One East, of the Second Indiana Principal Meridian; and is one mile south of the grounds of the Logansport State Hospital.

  It is on the North side of an E-W county highway which here separates section 3 from section 10, and about 175 feet east of a N-S county highway which here runs just east of the N-S midline of the west half of said section 3.  Headed southwestward from Logansport to Lafayette , paved State Highway 25 (and also the main track of the Wabash Railway) passes half a mile north of this cemetery, and also three-quarters of a mile west of this cemetery.

   Approximately 150 feet W.S.W of cemetery but across the E.W. road from it, is the unused brick building of the old Ebenezer Lutheran Church (erected in 1876, and abandoned in about 1894), which church, however, had no official connection with this cemetery, though, even after the church was abandoned for regular Sunday worship-services, the church was sometimes used for funerals for persons laid to rest in this cemetery. (This should not be confused with the old Ebenezer METHODIST Church , a few miles farther southwestward, a church which had a cemetery).

   This beautiful and well-kept “lawn cemetery” is bounded on the south by the E-W county highway (from which it is separated by a sturdy modern woven-wire fence); on the west by a cultivated field; and on the north and also the east by a beautiful, grassy, but not very deep hollow of a tiny (two-feet wide) spring-fed stream (which flows eastward and then southward).

   Following the burial here during the early 1870’s of a few persons, and finally, on about Christmas Day of 1875, of the owner, Mr. George Shideler, this latter’s son, Abraham Shideler. Formally opened this beautifully situated plot of ground for use as a public cemetery.

   George Shideler, who had been a Pennsylvanian of German descent, and his wife Elizabeth (Neff) Shideler, a Virginian, were the parents of nine children, including the previously mentioned Abraham, (who is considered the founder of this cemetery), and Isaac, the latter of whom was quite widely known in both fraternal (e.g., Masonic) and commercial circles at Logansport, the county-seat city, which is only a mile northeast of this old Shideler farm. (See :Helm History of Cass County, Indiana,” published 1886).

   The following report of names, dates, and certain other data of interest appearing on markers in this Shideler Cemetery, has been carefully checked, and is believed to be not only as complete as is possible at this date (April 17, 1941), but also accurate. It is respectfully submitted to the

INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Indianapolis ,

at the request of, and in accordance with instructions issued by, the

L’ANGUILLE VALLEY MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION,

of Logansport , Indiana , through Mr. R.B. Whitsett, Jr., Cemetery Research Committee, by

Harry Grisley,

314 Eleventh Street ,

Logansport , Indiana .

This report was input by Sadie Cunningham, September 2006 for the Cass County INGenWeb Site.  Photos taken 9 November 2006 by Debby Beheler.  Additional information may be submitted to Debby Beheler, Please include Shideler - Cass Co in the subject line.