Lysander Castle's Lonely Grave

(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society, Hobart, Indiana.

The stone in this photo marks the lonely grave of Lysander Castle, who died in 1851. This digital scan of the photo is taken from the computer at the Hobart Historical Society museum. The original physical photo does not seem to be in the museum. No information about its source was preserved with the scan.

In the Chester Cemetery section of the NWIGS' Ross Township Cemeteries, we find the following text, quoted (if I understand correctly) by the 1992 readers, who noted: "This information about Lysander Castle was taken from previous records":

Lysander was actually buried by Deep River. This is a single stone of a later period than the death date. It was installed by Kelly and son. Tradition has it that this is on property originally owned by Nathaniel P. Banks. Present day owners are the Truitt family, though this property was formerly owned by John Knotts. The marker is a few feet south of Deep River, which cuts through the property, on a high bank in an area completely covered with scrub bushes and blackberry briars.

Tradition further tells that the river was so completely covered by snow and overflowing that the pall bearers could not cross the river even after a two day wait, so the casket was buried on this spot. We have placed him in this record since there are other Castles buried in Chester Cemetery.

Perhaps the photo above was taken by the writers of the "previous records," whoever they may have been, and whenever they may have hiked out there along the banks of the river to find the stone. (A photo taken in 1992, I expect, would be in color.)

Here is the 1874 Plat Map of Section 7:


(Click on image to enlarge)

The 40 acres marked "M.A. Castle" were purchased by Lysander in 1849:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records; Washington D.C., USA; Federal Land Patents, State Volumes, via Ancestry.com. U.S., General Land Office Records, 1776-2015[database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008.

M.A. Castle was Lysander's widow, Maria Amanda (Harvey) Castle, whom he had married in 1837 in St. Joseph County, Indiana (Indiana Marriage Collection), and who had married Samuel Lathrop in 1853.

If the "tradition" quoted in the NWIGS book is correct, Lysander may be buried on the bit of land that Nathaniel Banks owned south of the Deep River and east of Sprout Ditch. Banks would not have owned that land at the time of Lysander's death, as he was then a child of six. I don't know who owned it then; I can't find any record of Lysander buying any other land in Section 7. I am not sure why Lysander's survivors would not have buried him on his own 40 acres. Perhaps they were carrying him along the river, looking for a place where they could cross it (intending, I suppose, to carry him to the Old Settlers Cemetery north on S.R. 51), and just gave up near Sprout Ditch (would they even have tried to cross that?), and buried him there.

The reference to the Truitt family owning the land is not illuminating, as they owned a tremendous amount of land there by 1950. I can't find a plat map showing the Knotts ownership.

I have taken this break from Jeremiah Wiggins to memorialize Lysander, whose lonely grave may soon be paved over for a data center. Or may at least become less lonely, but not in a good way.