Smith or Smith Chapel Cemetery

Contributed by Capt. David G Smith, USN Ret.

The Smith Cemetery is located about 1.5 miles directly South of the town of Monroe, between roads 100S and 200S, on the West side of the road. A church with 12 corners once stood here but is long since gone. Built in 1866, the church was still standing in 1918. The 1879 plat of Monroe Township shows the land, 75.72 acres, as having belonged to Robert E. Smith, Jr., a grandson of my g-g-g-grandfather Robert Smith (1786-1868). The cemetery begins at the end of a long lane and extends to the abandoned railroad bed of the Cincinnati, Richmond and Fort Wayne Railroad. In 1996-98 the existing stones were in two sections, the first section to the West, near the railroad bed, and the second to the East, starting at the end of the entrance land. The two sections are separated by an open area that might have been the location of the Twelve-Cornered Church. A plat recorded by Robert E. Smith, Jr., on 4 April 1892, indicates the plots in the cemetery extend from a point 17.5 feet from the railroad right-of-way (West end) for a distance of 263 feet. At that point it joins the "west line of Old Cemetery." The plots are in three rows of 18 and are numbered to 54. Each plot is 12 by 18 feet in size. I inventoried 35 rows of tombstones in the cemetery, with Row 1 starting closest to the railroad bed at the West end. Row 35 is 445 feet to the East.

Updated with information from obituaries, county histories, tombstone photos, funeral home records, obit abstracts and wills.
NSF = no stone found, information from burial records, obituaries and death certificates.
Text followed by a plus sign (+) indicated the Word document also contains a tombstone photograph.
Surnames that are capitolized have a biography included.

Many thanks to Barbara Baker Anderson, dr buck, Deb Curry and Mike Horn for sharing their tombstone photos. Unmarked photos are courtesy of Deb Curry.