Marshall County Home Cemetery

Washington Twonship - Section 9
Missing Graves

About 8 miles West of Marshalltown on highway #30 near the site of the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office/Jail property is the old Marshall County Home Cemetery about ½ mile west of the existing building in a area that is mowed & fenced in. There may be about a dozen or so headstones in this fenced in area. Very few, one can even read the inscriptions.

Many have copied the cemetery over the years ranging from 51-61 names on the markers & records found. We thank them for their time on this project. Some people said there were burials other places on the property which some were discovered when an excavation for a new building was done. Was there another cemetery closer to the buildings? The MC Home was built in 1870 and the earliest record for burials was 1896.

Traditions tell us there were many railroad workers & hobos buried here due to accidents and so forth where the County did the burial plus people from the MC Home. Most of these people probably had no money or relatives in the area so the County buried them.

In 1998, the Central Iowa Genealogical Society, knowing the existence of the Marshall County Home was in jeopardy, hand copied from the original books all the names and information they could find on the graves. They found a list of 51 names of people who were supposed to be buried there. The Marshalltown Library had a list of 61 names for the Marshall County Home that several people done. With the two lists this would make a total 112 burials. The area was too small for this many graves so where were they all buried?

In October of 2000, in preparation for a new highway, the Iowa Department of Transportation hired Louis Berger & Associates of Marion, Iowa, a cultural resource group, to do an archaeological study of the ground lying south of the existing cemetery fence. The study findings were finding of more than 64 graves that had been long forgotten. They hope this is a mystery solved on the missing graves. The excavation site has been filled in and the new found graves have been recorded using GPS (Global Positioning Satellites). A new fence was installed marking the boundaries of the cemetery.

Names with ** were taken from the County Home records that were marked “buried in the County Home Cemetery. These are burials on the MCH grounds according to the infirmary Book #1 & #3.

In the Southwest corner of the Elmwood Cemetery, La Mollie Iowa were eighteen (18) cement markers with no information. Tradition says these people were paupers from the Marshall County “Poor Farm” That leaves another mystery. Were they or were they not paupers and why buried at the Elmwood Cemetery?

Key: ** = Buried in County Home Cemetery according to County Home Records
MCDR = Marshall County Death Records
P/ = Parent of
FAM = Family Information
m. = Married
MRHS = Marshall County Historical Society
C/ = Child of
TO = Tombstone
S/ = Son of
abt = About
D = Daughter of
EXL = List copied by Linda Leach – 1976
FR = Friend

Copied from the Marshall County Home Records many of the graves are unmarked and the stones that are there are cast of concrete and unreadable.
This cemetery is no longer used.
Taken from many resources: at the Marshall County Historical Society Library, Central Iowa Genealogical Library and personal library of Merrill & Shirley Price.
In the 1970’s several of us copied all of the Marshall County Cemeteries. Since then several have been up dated by other people.

Note: At the Marshalltown Public Library (M.C. Cemetery Books) someone is changing the dates & names in the books.
Please verify the date/s you want by other sources.

Submitted by Merrill Price
Retyped 02 Oct 2009 by Merrill Price