Early History of the

Morgan Township Cemetery

The cemetery is located 2 miles south of Schleswig on Highway 59

This paragraph tells how the Morgan Township Cemetery began. It was taken from a letter written by Robert B. Lyon, editor and publisher of teh Schleswig Leader, by an elderly subscriber who requester to remain unidentified. "My father came to Morgan Township by covered wagon from Jackson County, Iowa, in the early 1870's. At that time, Morgan Township was all prairie. A one Nick Thompson, a resident of Morgan Township, passed away in death in April of 1872. There was no public cemetery in the area at that time, and it was considered unwise to send the body back East for burial on acount of the warm weather. So two acres of virgin land in the southeast corner of section 25 of Morgan Township were designated as a public graveyard. There, on Easter Sunday of 1872, the grave for Nick Thompson was dug by Henry Hollmann and Carsten Holdorf, both of Morgan Township." (Easter Sunday in 1872 was on April 14.)

On June 26, 1878, according to public record, all of section 25 of Morgan Township, including the two acres of the cemetery, was purchased by Catherine Nissen from the Iowa Railroad Land Company for the sum of $4308.18. On May 23, 1879, Catherine Nissen and her husband Hans sold four acres, in the form of a square, in the southeast corner of their property, to the Morgan Township Cemetery Association for the total amount of $60.00

The Morgan Township Cemetery Association sold the first cemetery plot to Johan Bendixen. The first person whose burial in the cemetery was officailly recorded was Herman Mundt.

On July 29, 1898, two acres of land was purchased by the Morgan Township Cemetery Association from Julia Sievers at a total cost of $50.00 and were added to the cemetery. In 1905, 4.9 acres of land were purchased from Hans D. Baeth and his wife Marie for the total amount of $400.00. In 1962, two acres of land was obtained from Leonard Dieter for the complete sum of $1000.00. The two-acre tract from Leonard Dieter is called the new addition of the cemetery. No other land has been added to the cemetery since 1962.

As a tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Hans Nissen, the cemetery was called the Nissen Cemetery. In 1910, however, the name was changed to Morgan Township Cemetery.

In the early years, the cemetery was covered with prairie grass which was so luxuriant in growth that people sometimes experienced difficulty in finding the resting places of their departed loved ones.

The cemetery was placed under perpetual care in 1942, with an assessment of one hundred dollars placed on each lot.

From Schleswig Leader February 21, 1974

Surname Listings of Burials

A to C D to G H to J K to L
M to O
P to R
S
T to Z

Permission was given by the board of trustees of the Morgan township cemetery, Schleswig, Iowa, to document and use this material in the Crawford county IAGenWeb pages and to upgrade their records to electronic as of this date, July 24, 2000. Freddie Friedrichsen assisted with filling in some lot and space numbers. The library at Schleswig, Iowa, allowed me to copy their records, most were incomplete. Physically walking to document all grave sites was a necessity. Ina Mae Bliesmann, Mary Claussen,Sharon McConnell Peters and husband, Loren Peters assisted. Most recent data update in September, 2004, by Sharon Peters.
The gazebo, erected in 2006, contains a map of cemetery plot locations with a listing of burials by location within the cemetery. The generous donation by Mr. and Mrs. Eddie Clausen made the gazebo possible.

The Gazebo

Cemetery Plot Locations

Listing of Burials by Location

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Copyright by the Crawford County, Iowa, IAGenWeb Project and Contributors.