Tombstone Tuesday :: Cleveland Family

JESSE CLEVELAND ESQ. / Son of / Dea. Palmer / Cleveland, / died / Dec. 11, 1838, / in the 35, y'r. / of his age.

Jesse was, reportedly, the first person to be buried in the Cleveland Cemetery, which is located southeast of South Whitley, Cleveland Township, Whitley County, Indiana. Arriving in 1834, Jesse joined his parents Palmer and Anna Cleveland, and his brother Benjamin and their families who were among the first white settlers to come to what would later be known as Cleveland Township.

I don't know if this is the oldest grave marker in existence here in Whitley County, but it is one of the oldest (and in the best condition) of the old ones that I have come across.

Buried next to Jesse are his parents.

• DEA. PALMER CLEVELAND / died / July 19, 1842, / in the 75, y'r. / of his age.
• ANNA CLEVELAND. / WIFE OF / PALMER CLEVELAND, / DIED / Oct. 1, 1847 / AGED / 70 YEARS. (A portion of Anna's transcription is from a reading done by someone in 1982, when the stone was lying flat on the ground.)

Photos taken January 26, 2002 by Rebeckah R. Wiseman.

Leonard Tagmeyer has made Three Trips Across

Columbia City Post, Whitley County, Indiana ~ February 9, 1918

Leonard Tagmeyer, son of Mrs. Jesse Tagmeyer, of South Whitley, is home at the present time and will be until Monday from the navy. He enlisted about a year ago, before the declaration of war, and he has the distinction of having been back and forth across the Atlantic four times. He declined to make any public statements for the paper, as the men are put on their honor not to talk, but he admitted that ships he was on had been fired upon by submarines but never hit. He says the men get the best of care and he has no patience with the newspaper stories about neglect of the men. He says that U. S. troops are being moved across in immense numbers "pretty fast," as he described it. He is now on shore duty in the naval barracks at Philadelphia.

Susan Mossman Will Filed for Probate (1917)

Columbia City Post, Whitley County, Indiana ~ Saturday, May 12, 1917

The will of the late Susan M. Mossman, of Union township, was filed for probate late Thursday afternoon, in Clerk Otis E. Plattner's office. The instrument was drawn Nov. 23, 1916, by Attorneys McNagny & McNagny and was witnessed by Charles W. Johnson and Frank L. VanTilbury, both of Union township.

There are six items of the will. The first provides that all just debts shall be paid. The second gives to the daughter, Jesse E. Stoner, with whom the deceased spent her last days, all of her real estate, wherever situated, in fee simple, subject to provisions made for her daughter, Zella Z. Barnes, and subject to other provisions for other children in the family.

The third item deals with the personal property, and the daughter, Jessie E. Stoner, is to receive it all. The fourth item specifies that each of her four children, Orpha D. Naber, James F. Mossmann, Marie R. Oser and Zella Z. Barnes, shall receive $1,250 in money. One-third of it is to be paid in cash in sixty days; one-third in one year and one-third in two years. The deferred payments are not to bear interest, but should they not be paid when due, then they shall bear 8 per cent interest.

The real estate which is left to Jessie E. Stoner is subject to the condition that she permit her daughter, Zella Z. Barnes, and her son Charles Barnes, to have their home in the dwelling house upon said lands as long as Jessie E. Stoner remains the owner of them. The sixth item names Jessie E. Stoner administratrix, and she has filed bond and qualified.