WELTY CEMETERY

The Welty cemetery, on a bluff south of Middle river, in Section 14 of Webster township was given by the heirs of Peter Welty, March 31, 1891, and was recorded in the court house that it should be used for public burying grounds. The deed was signed by Martha E. and Miles H. Hart, John A. and Ida Welty, Mary Welty (widow of Peter), Caroline and Andrew M. Hart, Emanual M. and Elizabeth J. Welty. It is not on one of the main roads but is well kept. Other families there include the Schnellbachers, Wisslers and Krells.¹ The cemetery is directly west behind the Oak Grove Church but a deep creek and steep ravine prevent access from that direction.

From a January, 1929 article in The Winterset News titled "OLD CEMETERIES ON MIDDLE RIVER": Just west of oak Grove church across Welty Branch, or Rocky Branch as it is now called, is a little cemetery on top of a slight knoll overlooking Middle River. It is surrounded by a good woven wire fence. Mr. Weems said the township kept it in order by mowing down the weeds and grass and keeping things in repair. It is a beautiful spot but no roads run by it or to it. Evidently, access to it for vehicles is through the old valley farm now owned by Mr. Weems. it is a little bit of a cemetery less than a score of marked graves being in it, most of them marked with the white marble slabs used in the sixties and seventies. Emanuel Welty, an old settler, and his wife and two or three children are buried there. The Schnellbachers, pioneers, are buried there and a grave or two marked with Hart, and Krell. A reverend Wallace lies buried there, evidently a pastor of the Oak Grove church in 1887. There have been no recent burials.

It is an old cemetery, the first burial marked in 1861. Like all the rest of the first settlements in Webster was along the river, where there was protection from prairie fires and wood was plenty. The selection of a neighborhood cemetery was inevitable and so when the first death occurred it was necessary to choose a site. Probably a Schnellbacher or Hart or Welty or Krell chose this beautiful site overlooking Middle River and Welty Branch, where the dead might slumber to the murmur of the water or the roar of the floods."²

The last Schnellbacher to die in the county was George who died in 1945 and was buried in the Welty Cemetery in an unmarked grave. After his burial, the cemetery fell into disuse and maintenance was discontinued until the early 2000s when maintenance was revived and about a half dozen new gravesites were marked with gravestones.³

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Source 1: The Winterset Madisonian - Centennial Edition

                Winterset, Iowa

                July 18, 1956

                Page 7, Column 1  (page 52 in on-line version)

Source 2: The Winterset News

                Winterset, Iowa

                January 10, 1929, Page 1, Column 1: "OLD CEMETERIES ON MIDDLE RIVER"

Source 3: Personal knowledge of former IAGenWeb County Coordinator, Kent Transier.

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