County Poor House Cemetery, Madison Township, Lenawee County, Michigan Copyright © 1998 and published in Vol 11 issed 2 Nov-Dec 1997 issue of the Lenawee County Family Reserchers Newsletter.. This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives. ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/mi/mifiles.htm ************************************************ This file has been updated, the new information has the dates spelled out. County Poor House Cemetery In the last part of the last century and into this, Lenawee County, like many counties across the country, had a County Poor House. Ours was built in 1876 on Cadmus Road, in Madison Township. (Near the Lenawee Airport in 1998.) Many of the inmates who lived and died at the poor house were buried in a little cemetery on the grounds. The building is gone today, but the cemetery remains. There are only one or two headstones. If your ancestor ended up in the Poor House and died there, you may never find burial records, but your ancestor may indeed be buried there. That is because before 1898 there are no records of who may be buried there. In the early 1980's a local mortician, Dick Braun, told the curator of the Lenawee County Historical Society Museum, Dr. Charles Lindquist, that there is no plat of burial sites for the cemetery, now known as the Maple Lane Cemetery. He told Dr. Lindquist that they "just dug holes as needed" and buried the dead. Dick Braun also stated that no caskets had ever been removed from the cemetery when the poor house was torn down. It is the current belief that those interred there, remain so. If anyone has information to the contrary, please contact us. If you happen to be at the county clerks office and request Death Book C, you will find attached to the front page a list of people buried at Maple Lane Cemetery. This list was not published by Harriet Cole Clark Bowen in the 1930's and 40's when she compiled 5 volumes of cemetery books with the assistance of the DAR. Dr. Charles Lindquist provided me with the list when I asked about the poor house for another researcher who believed that their ancestor died at the county poor house around 1900. The Lenawee County Researchers are planning on updating the cemetery books for the county over the next several years and will publish a number of volumes, the following list will be included. List of People buried at Maple Lane Cemetery--per old records (no one can explain what old records this list came from, or where the list was found, or where it maybe located in 1998) Name Date of Death Lot No. Ackerman, David 6/21/1899 27 Aiken, Judson Jan 2,1923 Allen, Mary Frances 11/5/06 49 Appleton, James Feb 16,1927 Austin, Mary 3/27/09 Bailey, Nathan 4/9/12 Baker, David 3/18/01 33 Belcher, Washington March 28,1928 Bowen, Martha March 30,1928 Brownell, Charles 12/22/1899 28 Brownell, Frank 7/21/02 39 Brush, Orin J. 5/21/07 Buck, Thirza 10/28/03 42 Capen, Eben 3/19/12 Clament, Ira Dec 14,1923 Coats, Harriet 4/24/06 46 Colman, John W. 4/22/04 45 Dakin, Edmund 03/17/1899 23 Davis, Lorenzo Pal March 17,1928 Deming, Edward 2/5/00 29 Deming, Jesse 2/5/02 37 Drummond, Henry 2/21/02 38 Egert, Joe Jan 14,1931 Epply, Willard 8/19/12 Falkner, Clyde Oct 23,1948 Fox, Samuel March 4,1924 Galinus, Nellie Jeffry Oct 26,1928 Gallimore, Thomas Sept 23,1948 Gray, Charlotte A. 9/15/07 Greenfield, F. A. Nov. 9,1929 Grice, Sherman Jan 15,1918 Harris, Martha 4/29/00 22 Harris, William W. 6/18/1898 20 Henry, Mary 12/29/09 Hoffman, Edward 4/27/07 Humphrey, Thadius W. 04/15/1899 24 Jacobs, Maggie Feb 22,1916 Jawarski, Gus May 26,1935 Jones, Matt June 12,1927 Kraff, Mary Ann 9/29/01 35 Lanning, Ed Oct 13,1938 Lovensa, Emery 10/20/00 9 Mann, A. R. Oct 7,1929 Manning, Hiram E. 12/16/02 Martin, Minnie 4/28/04 43 McCabe, Robert Aug 7,1916 Menthers, Godleb 10/30/11 Miller, Ruben Nov 21,1933 Moxley, Thomas B. 7/20/06 48 Nichols, Fred Jan 25,1925 Nickson, John Aug 4,1916 O'Lary, Godfrey 4/27/06 or 4/23/07 Ordaway, Abe April 4,1923 Ostrander, A.A. Aug 6,1938 Pape, Almond 7/22/04 44 Parker, Samuel E. 07/00/02 40 Partridge, Herbert Jan 19,1931 Peterson, Peter Oct 11,1931 Pickering, Ann 7/13/06 47 Pickering, Jacob 8/11/01 21 Redmond, Pat 2/8/01 32 Retter, George Dec 21,1918 Rock, Esther 4/15/10 Ross, John Dec 9,1921 Selleck, Albert W. Dec 4,1920 Selleck, Charles Mar 11,1921 Seward, John 03/28/1898 19 Smith, Kate 05/29/1899 25 Smith, William 09/18/1899 21 Steadman, Lewis July 3,1928 Thomas, Oliver Jan 12,1918 Thompson, Alice 5/11/11 Thomson, John April 19,1925 Torres, Roberto, Jr. (InfanAug 20,1968 Travis, Mary Nov 11,1927 Travis, Solomon Dec 20,1929 Trumball, Rachel 6/10/09 Vaughn, Calvin 1/15/01 31 Wallace, William B. 12/18/01 36 Warboy, George Aug 2,1931 Watkins, John 3/14/10 Wheeler, Uriv 2/10/12 Whitbeck, Anthony Aug 15,1924 Whitcase, George Mar 3,1929 Woodbury, Jesse 7/15/01 34 Zeller, Ed Oct 20,1938 At the Lenawee County Historical Society Museum Archives room there is a scrapbook that has newspaper articles about the poor house. Many of the articles are from the mid 1900's, however, I found one that was dated 1906 (handwritten date), newspaper not identified. The article explains how the poor house has become quite self reliant, growing its own produce, raising cows for milk, describing in detail the rooms and conditions of the home. On the second page there are some interesting details for the family historian. It names two residents who have been at the "infirmary" for over half of their lives, Uriah Wheeler, age 71 of Deerfield, and Rachel Trumball, age 76 of Rollin. The article continues, "Among the old timers at the infirmary are: Ella Huelett, 38 years, Madison; James Quick, 34 years, Adrian; Francis D. Cosart, 30 years, Adrian and Jane Ann Grandy, 27 years from Adrian." (It is not clear if this is how long these inmates had been at the home or if this was their age.) The oldest are listed as: Gottliebe Menthy, of Hudson, age 89; Nathan Bailey, of Adrian, age 88, and John Rock, of Medina, age 87. "The oldest person ever at the infirmary was Anderson Marsh, who died two years ago at the age of 97 years." Longest resident of the octogenarians is Nathan Jennings, of Hudson township, age 82, who has been there nineteen years. The last interesting bit of information for the family researcher in this article is that there were two cases of both husband and wife being at the infirmary. One of those was Mrs. Mary J. Steinmetz, aged 76, of Deerfield, who "derives a good deal of enjoyment out of sewing and in the last two years had pieced twenty-eight quilts." You will find some of these names on the burial list and some you will not. If you suspect your ancestor died at the poor house before 1898 and if you can find that ancestor on the death index for Lenawee County, be sure to go to the county clerk and inspect the original death entry. If you find that your ancestor died in Madison Township, the parents are "not known" and he/she died of "sickness", then you can begin to suspect that they were an inmate of the poor house. From records I have inspected, the staff at the poor house did indeed report the deaths, but unfortunately, did not have the kinds of details about the deceased that family history researchers are searching for. dz