The actual boundaries of the cemetery (or cemeteries) on Adams Street are unclear, but the existance of it is without question.
According to The Muncie Daily Herald of June 7, 1895, workers uncovered human remains and parts of coffins
while working on a construction project for Harvey Long on Adams Street.
A few weeks later, an article appearing in the June 29, 1895, issue of The Morning News regarding the newly formed Muncie Cemetery
Association noted that the '...first (it was the second)...which was located near the corner of Adams and Cherry streets
long ago fell into disuse but the fact of its existance was bright to mind a few days ago by the disinterment of human ones,
while workmen were excavating for Harvey Long's new residence." Extant city directories list Harvey's home at 416 West Adams.
On January 21, 1901, the illusive cemetery makes another appearance in the news. Headlines on the front page of the The Muncie
Daily Times announce the discovery of even more bones. Elmer Thompson and other workers doing excavation for a sewer at the
northeast corner of Adams and Cherry Streets turned up a remains of an adult found about 7 feet deep lying about 20 feet from the
curb. Neither to direction nor the curbs location was mentioned. It was assuming that the body had been interred in a simple box
and none of it had survived the ravages of time. The article mentions that the bones found during the dugging of Long's cellar
were in two kegs when discovered. The paper claimed 'a number of fine roots of the [cherry] tree had penetrated the earth to the
depth of the grave and were found wound through the openings of the skull where the eyes, nose and ears were. The teeth indicated
that the person died while probably about thirty-five years old. They were fully developed and well preserved.' Dr J H Bloor had recently
purchased the property but had not yet decided if he will move in or what he would be doing with the remains. Additional coverage in
the Muncie Star of January 24, told of two more complete skeletons discovered the same day.
Three boxes of bones were found during excavation for the Friends Church. Two were discovered then interred on
October 17, 1906, in Beech Grove Cemetery, section 17, lot 133. The third was interred in section 17, lot 247,
on May 8, 1907.
General William Harrison Kemper mentions burials on Adams Street twice in his A Twentieth Century History of
Delaware County, Indiana.
On page 106, he says "...and the second [cemetery was] on the north side of Adams west of Franklin. When
the present cemetery [Beech Grove] was laid out the bodies were disinterred from the old grounds and placed
in the new one." Later on page 292, Kemper states "John Allen Clark was, probably, the third physician...
died in Muncie, May 12, 1847...A friend tells me that he was buried in the old cemetery, and his bones are
still lying under some one of the fine homes near the Friends' new church." The Friends Memorial Church
stands at 418 W Adams Street, running the length of the block from Cherry to Liberty.
The Delaware County InGenWeb site
claims there was a cemetery on Adams just west of the site of the old high
school, later the Ball Corporation headquarters (Ivy Tech in 2013). This building is on Adams between High
and Franklin Streets. East to West, the crossroads are High, Franklin, Liberty, and Cherry, so it isn't a
stretch
to consider these possibly being the same location.
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Thomas B. Helm quoted Minus Turner in his History of Delaware County, Indiana (likely Kemper's source)
"The next burying place [after Main & Beacon] was located on the north side of Adams street, west of Franklin,
running back to the Alley, containing about the equivalent of two town lots. The graves were on Adams street,
none on Jackson. It was cut out in the woods and was therefore surrounded by timber. I had my wife and two
children buried there. They, as well as most of the others, were taken up and moved to the new cemetery [Beech
Grove]."
Kemper's comments about disinterment from the "old grounds" stuck a bit of a chord with this author. More recently,
in the Sunday Muncie Star of April 28, 1935, newspaper columnist Robert Bradbury talked about reviewing
records with Beech Grove Cemetery Superintendent Jesse G White and secretary, Miss Keener. He claimed that the burial
"book shows there were seventy-three bodies removed from the 'old ground' to the platted ground between 1867 and the
eighties. That 'old ground' I reckon was that part some little distance back from the street and north next to the
river, 'cause that's where there are a lot o' tombstones with dates in the forties and fifties."
He goes on to say "...it was right interestin' to me to look over the information in that book about the removin' to the
platted lots of bodies that had been buried elsewhere. For instance, on April 3, 1869, four infants of John and Susan
Jack were removed from the "Old Ground" and reinterred in the Jack lot in the new part. And on April 19, 1868 there were
four Spilkers removed from the old part, and in shows that George A Spilker had died in July 1851, which indicates that
Beech Grove has been used for over eighty-five years anyway, and possibly ninety."
Most extant records for Beech Grove have been provided to the public through the Muncie Public Library's website (Huge
thanks from this researcher!). Entries are searchable by name or date and each burial has its own PDF file. Numerous early
records indicate that certain sets of remains had been removed from the "old ground" and interred in a particular
section, lot and space. Mr Bradbury, and assumedly, Miss Keener and Mr White, concluded that those burials were moved
from graves within Beech Grove.
This researcher proposes a different scenerio. Could the "old gound" of Adams Street be the very same "old ground' noted in
the burial records? That the were, in fact, moved from the old city cemetery to Beech Grove rather than moved within the
current cemetery? While we likely all know of a case or two where a family buys a large lot and might move in a body or two
from single graves or a smaller lot across the way. But it makes little on no sense to me that burials, long moldering, would
be moved simply to rearrange them. If that were the case, where had they been originally?