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Welcome To Sullivan County, Indiana
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WEBB CEMETERY HistoryWEBB CEMETERY ONE OF EARLY HISTORIC BURIAL GROUNDS OF SULLIVAN COUNTY Old Cemetery, in Continuous Use for 125 Years, Located About 1 ½ Miles Southeast of Rose Chapel By Samuel S. Brewer It is not generally known that there is a chain of 50 or 60 early cemeteries, many of them of commanding historic interest, located within the boundaries of Sullivan County, Indiana The majority of these cemeteries are along the old Indian trails - the Tippecanoe, Tecumseh, Ontario, Indian Prairie or White River, Busseron of Connecting, and the Palmer's Prairie. The most of them, however, are no longer used as such. Some have actually been obliterated. Others have been abandoned and are now in a dilapidated state of preservation. A few are still in use. The Webb is one of them. It has been in continuous use since February 13th, 1815, or for a period of 125 years next February. The Webb cemetery is located on Gill's Prairie, in Gill Township, about 1 ½ miles southeast of the present Rose Chapel church and about 3 ½ miles south of New Lebanon, Indiana. It is on the northeast side of a county road, running in a general direction from the northwest to the southeast, and fronts to the southwest, with a magnificent view over a wide expanse of level prairie land. The cemetery itself being on a ridge of land running parallel with the road and overlooking the level land below. The survey location is near the northwest corner of the northeast ¼ of the southwest ¼ of Section 1, Town 6 North, Range 10 West, in the above named township and county. The land upon which the cemetery is situated was entered from the Government by John Wallace, the first surveyor of Sullivan county, on February 4th, 1816, and by him conveyed a few years later to Jonathan Webb, a native of New York State, who came to this location of Gill's Prairie in about 1818 from the State of Kentucky. Jonathan Webb fenced off the ground for this cemetery after he acquired the land from John Wallace, and since that time it has always been known as the Webb Cemetery. After the death of Jonathan Webb, the land upon which this particular plot of ground was located eventually became the property of the late Robert Massey, of near Merom, Indiana. He was a son-in-law of Jonathan Webb. His wife being Elizabeth Webb, a daughter of Jonathan Webb. On July 5th, 1894, Robert Massey and Elizabeth, his wife, conveyed the old original cemetery, as then fenced off, but still a part of the family land as far as the record of title was concerned, which he then owned, to the Trustees of the New Lebanon M.E. Church, containing at that time 1 ¼ acres, more or less. Sometime subsequent to July 5th, 1894, but prior to March 25, 1909, additional land was added to the cemetery, so that by the latter date it contained in all 2 acres of land, and it is possible that more has been added since then, as the present cemetery certainly has more than 2 acres in it. It is well fenced. The cemetery lays astride the old Tippecanoe Indian trail. Later the Harrison military road followed over the same course, and remained so until the cemetery was started in 1815. The Vincennes and Terre Haute stage road was not built until after the cemetery was in existence and for that reason its course was changed here so as to take the road out of the cemetery and routed along the foot of the slope, where the present county road now runs, with the exception of the new triangle part of the cemetery which it originally crossed. The depression in the ground in this new triangle part of the cemetery where the old road ran can still be seen. Across the crown of the knoll where this cemetery is situated strode the feet of many famous Indian chieftains in times past, as they marched along the Tippecanoe Indian trail going both north and south. Among a few of them that can be named were Tecumseh, the Prophet, Little Turtle, Cornstalk, Winamac, Little Hawk, and many others of a far earlier date whose names are not now known. Also, in addition to the above named Indian chieftains, marched Major-General George Rogers Clark, with his army of 1,200 men in 1786; Colonel John Francis Hamtramck, in 1790, with his army of 800 men; General William Henry Harrison, in 1811, with his army of 1,200 men; Colonel William Russell, with his army of 300 mounted men and wagon train of 200 wagons, in his first expedition late in December of 1811; Colonel William Russell, in his second expedition, with an army of several hundred men and wagon train, in August of 1812; Lieutenant Fairbanks and his command, in September of 1812; General Samuel Hopkins and his army of 2,600 mounted Kentucky riflemen in October of 1812. A combined total of 7 historic military expeditions, comprising a total of over 7,000 men, whose feet passed over the site of the Webb cemetery before it was ever established as such. These expeditions covered a span of time from 1786 to 1812, or 26 years of the formative period of the State of Indiana and the Northwest Territory. Many notable men of the past have been at its site. Among a few of them were Major-General George Rogers Clark, of Revolutionary fame; Colonel John Francis Hamtramck, of the United States Army and later of Detroit, Michigan, renown; General William Henry Harrison, afterwards President of the Unite States; General Samuel Hopkins, afterwards a famous member of Congress from the state of Kentucky; Captain Zachary Taylor, afterwards a noted General of the Mexican War and later President of the United States; Colonels John C. Breckenridge and Richard M. Johnson, both of whom were later Vice-Presidents, of the United States; Captain Jefferson Davis, afterwards President of the Southern Confederacy; Lieut. Albert Sidney Johnston, afterwards a famous general in the Confederate Army, who was killed at the battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing during the Civil War; Humphrey Marshall, the brother of John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America; Colonel William Taylor, the Father of President Zachary Taylor and the quarter-master in command of the Half-Way Fort during the War of 1812; Lieut. Fairbanks, who met his death at Defeat Branch in Fairbanks township a few days after passing over this site; and a few who passed alongside the cemetery after it was established over the state road and the present route of the county road, were Abraham Lincoln in 1830, afterwards President of the United States, during the Civil War; Henry Clay; Lewis Cass; Daniel Woolsey Voorhees; Oliver P. Morton; Benjamin Harrison, afterwards President; Jonathan Jennings. the first Governor of Indiana; Ninian Edwards, later a Governor and Senator from the state of Illinois; Governor Isaac Shelby of Kentucky; and many others who could be named. It is to be regretted that Abraham Lincoln did not pass over the crown of the old part of the cemetery, but he did pass over the new part, or triangle at the west end of the same, where the stage road once passed. The first burial made in the present Webb Cemetery was that of the body of Dudley Mack, early in the morning of February 13, 1815. The burial was made at the side of the old Harrison military road, near the center of the present old part of the cemetery. His grave is now marked with both a headstone and a footmarker, but with no inscription on either of them. The head of his grave was originally marked with a large red sandstone rock, with no inscription on it, placed there by the late Charles W. Webb of New Lebanon, who knew exactly where the grave was located. Many years later this rock was cracked into two halves or rough slabs and the larger half placed at the head and the smaller at the foot, and as above noted no inscription placed on either. The history of the death and burial of Dudley Mack is part of the early history of Sullivan County, Indiana. He and his companion, John Collins, were returning northward from Shakertown. Both were mounted. At or near the Lisman ford over Busseron creek, they were fired upon by Indians. Both were badly wounded. Dudley Mack's horse dashed, with him still astride of it, up the Harrison road to the northwest toward Fort Gill. John Collins' horse ran up a road to the eastward, toward Fort Ledgerwood. Dudley Mack arrived within the stockade enclosure at Fort Gill and there, under an elm tree, fell off his horse dead. (This tree died a few years ago and was cut down. The stump is still there. It is now out in the field about 100 feet southwest of the last elm tree standing at the south end of the group of trees that now surrounds the house on the W.H. (Hank) Poston farm, southeast and across the road from the present Rose Chapel Church). This was late in the afternoon of Sunday, February 12, 1815. His body was carried into Fort Gill. That night, Mary Ann Gill, the wife of William Gill, made the winding sheet in which his body was encased. A walnut tree was cut down, a log of sufficient length was sawed off, the log split into two halves with a wedge and maul, each rounded half-log dug out with a foot adz and wood chisel, holes bored with an augur along the top of the rims of each side and at the ends of both halves, round pegs driven into the bored holes on the lower half, the body placed in this lower half and the upper half then fitted onto the projecting pegs from the lower half. By the time the body was thus prepared for burial during the night, great alarm had spread among the few settlers then left living around Fort Gill. They hurried their livestock into the stockade and decided to take all the women and children to Fort Ledgerwood, which happened then to be the best place for protection. All the other forts having been vacated and abandoned by the Government the fall before, in 1814. During the night a messenger arrived from Fort Ledgerwood, for Mary Ann Gill to come and dress the wounds of John Collins who had arrived there, until the nearest doctor, who was at Vincennes, could arrive, which would take 2 days time. A son of John Haddon had already been sent by horse to get him, probably Dr. Keykendall. (Mary Ann Gill, the wife of William Gill, was a daughter of Dr. McCrae, of Wilmington, North Carolina, and before her marriage had been an army nurse). Before daybreak, of the morning of February 13th, 1815, the start was made for Fort Ledgerwood. The coffin containing the body of Dudley Mack was taken along with them in a wagon. When the site was reached where the Webb cemetery is now located, a stop was made long enough to hurriedly dig a grave alongside the then Harrison road. William Gill, a clergyman and school master, conducted the short burial service. The site of the cemetery was then wooded except that part where the Harrison road ran across it, in a general direction from the northwest to the southeast. For many years a tree was left standing at the head of the grave of Dudley Mack, but it was later cut down. The late Charles W. Webb remembered both the tree and the later stump, as well as the location of every grave near that of Dudley Mack, most of whom were his relatives and many of whose graves he had helped dig. The wounds of John Collins at Fort Ledgerwood were dressed by Mary Ann Gill, as soon as they could arrive there, after the burial of Dudley Mack as above explained. He recovered and later became the founder of the numerous Collins' family of Haddon township, this county. Little is now known about Dudley Mack. At the time he was killed, he was a full matured man, of large size, and must have been at least 25 years old, in 1815, which would place his birth date at about 1790. Many New York settlers had settled in this section at that time, and he was one of them. It is not yet fully determined which Mack family of New York state he belonged to, but as soon as it is ascertained, it will be published. rticles taken from the microfilm of Dr. J.B. Maple's Scrapbook, at the library at Terre Haute, Indiana. They were originally printed in the Sullivan Union, dated June 1, June 8, and July 20, 1939. |
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