KIMMEL CEMETERY
Township 12 south, range 2 west
Union County Illinois Genealogy Trails

Kimmel Cemetery, located west of Jonesboro, was transcribed by
Darrel Dexter in the winter of 1997. It is probably the oldest cemetery
in Union County. To my knowledge, it has the oldest legible marker in
Union County, that of Jacob Woolf, who died in 1823. (The oldest marker
in St. Johns Cemetery is dated 1828 and in Jonesboro Cemetery 1829.)
Kimmel Cemetery is often called the "Old Dunkard Cemetery." The
earliest members of the families buried there were connected to the
Dunkard Church, or German Baptist Brethren. There was at one time a
large Dunkard Colony south of Jonesboro, composed of Woolf, Hunsaker,
Kimmel, Davis, Dougherty, Vancil, Wigle, Limbaugh and other families.
They are in some ways similar to the Mennonites and were called
"Dunkards," the German word for "dippers," because they baptized by
dipping the person forward, face down, into the water three times.
Jacob Woolf and George Davis, who died in 1816, were made the first
deacons of the church in 1813 and George Woolf was chosen the pastor.
In 1826, Charles Dougherty, the son of Charles and Elizabeth Woolf
Dougherty, was ordained a Dunkard preacher in Union County. Between
1827 and 1831, most of the Dunkards left to settle in Adams Co., Ill.
The last love feast was held by the Dunkards in Union County in 1836 at
the home of Daniel Kimmel.
The oldest markers in the cemetery are classified as "discoid," a type
of marker which looks like a nearly circular head, neck and square
shoulders.
*These burials are believed to be in the Kimmel Family Cemetery, south of Jonesboro, instead of this cemetery.

©2007-2008 Illinois Genealogy Trails, Anna Newell
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