Smith-Vanlandingham
Harrison Township, Section 30, Township 21, Range 9

Mowed Over or Plowed Under


This is the third of a multi-part series looking at cemeteries whose existence has been lost altogether.

While recently doing some information swapping at the Yorktown/Mount Pleasant Township Historical Alliance with Karen Good, she ran across some paperwork previously belonging to Kenneth and Alma Petro, two of the early Delaware County researchers back when genealogy was just becoming cool in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Their passion led them to countless hours of cemetery research over the years. This handful of pages was shared with Bob Good, Karen's husband and until fairly recently, chairman of the county cemetery preservation committee, by their son, Phil Petro. These notes by an unknown hand in a ledger read as follows: "On the Vanlandingham farm from Grocery store at Bethel at one west and 1/4 mile south since". Some notes were written across two opposing pages of the book. If that was the case, this left page's right partner has been lost and there may have been more information between "farm" and "Grocery", and possibly after "since". But using the information at hand, I was able to locate the land of John Vanlandingham in the area described. Of course sleep is overrated when facing a great mystery.

On 25 August 1837, Abram deeded to "Isaac Stout and the church of the Christian Friends" a parcel of land described as "apart [sic] of Section thirty Township Twenty one north of Range No Nine East to Commence five Rods west of the North East Corner of Said Section and running from thence west with the Section line nineteen Rods and a half thence South Six and a half degrees east 16 and a half Rods to a stake thence North forty four degrees east 25 1/4 three links to the place of beginning containing one acre more of less" to be used for "a School and meeting house and burying ground". The church paid four dollars for the land.

Following Abram's death in 1868, the land in that immediate area came into the hands of his son John, then later, son James. Neither the cemetery nor the church and school are mentioned in any subsequent deed. It seems that no structure was built as planned. If they were, they must have been short-lived to have completely faded from collective memory. It isn't known if the cemetery had already been established by the Smith family during their brief ownership prior to the sale. It could be that it fell into disuse and the Christian Friends just walked away.

The property came into the hands of John Vanlandingham in 1905 and remained in the family until the 1950s. Someone in that era, or since, knew of the cemetery leading one to believe there were some number of burials there and maybe some remaining identifiable characteristics. How long it was in use and whose remains it contained will, more likely than not, be forever lost to researchers.


© On The Banks of White River, Jennifer Lewis, 25 March 2025

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