Need your input on a question I was asked recently. We have a new Twp Trustee who sees it as his responsibility to maintain ALL cemeteries without a church or organization in his Twp. In 1994, a resident of this twp was charged with several counts of animal cruelty for keeping starving horses in a mud lot in the dead of the winter with no food until they were near death. Luckily, the DNR stepped in and an officer went to the pasture to video tape evidence of the case and stood on a little knoll in order to gain the best shot for his video. Later, when asking neighbors about the situation, one informed him the knoll he stood on was a pioneer cemetery. He went back in March of that year and found a few fragments of stones in amongst the manure. He was stunned and talked to a reporter at the paper who published 3 or 4 articles about it. The officer took his research to the state house and testified before the legislature for Rep. Lytle. He is one of the reasons we have these new laws to help protect such pioneer cemeteries as this one. When I was asked by the new trustee if I knew what he was suppose to do with this cemetery, which is on private ground (same owner) and barely anything left of it, I told him if he insisted on maintaining it and restoring it, the owner would probably charge him with trespassing or at least involve the sheriff a few times. I called the officer who is now out of the field and in an office in Indy, since this was the same cemetery he tried to save. He said he thought that back in 1994 when they first discovered the cemetery in that sad of a shape, the law read that the trustee was still responsible for it, private ground or not. The law was revised in 1997 and now says that trustees aren't responsible it if taxes are being paid by the landowner on it. He hasn't seen the new laws and asked that I call him back in a few weeks when he has had a chance to read them and figure out what it means. I thought I'd ask the group what their interpretation of the situation is. I need all the help I can get, a trustee as devoted as this one doesn't come along very often. A pioneer cemetery with a rich history is at stake as well. Thanks. Cris West Columbus, IN

Dear Cris: My first thought on your question concerning "on private property". Let me CAUTION you here. Just because an old family cemetery is SURROUNDED by privately-owned real estate does NOT mean it is "on private property". A good deal of research is required before one could definitively state the cemetery is on "private property". Remember that after the turn of the 1900s, it became "gauche" to have a cemetery in your yard or on your property. Also, the mention of a cemetery on the deed made the property less attractive to a prospective buyer. For this reason and possibly others as well, cemeteries started "falling off" deeds. There are a number of ways to word a legal description by which one can skirt around the mention of the word "cemetery" or "graveyard" without actually changing the metes and bounds. I highly recommend a careful reading of Marlene Mattox's article on researching cemetery property records. You could investigate this situation and dig up the old deeds running back into the mid- and late-1800s and be quite surprised to find that the old cemetery was indeed an EXCEPTION there but not mentioned on subsequent deeds. If you find then that there is a "hole" in this landowner's property, in which case taxes are not PAID on the cemetery itself, then it WOULD be the statutory responsibility of the Township Trustee. In the vast majority of cases, no one is going to bother tracking the deeds back through the decades to the mid-1800s and no one will know without a survey and title search being done that the property contained a cemetery. On the other hand, if you go to the courthouse and pull up the current deed, you might be surprised and find the cemetery conspicuously mentioned in the document, in which case you will be able to easily determine that taxes are in fact NOT paid on the cemetery tract. So, proceed with caution and do the research. You will likely be surprised at what you'll find. Lois ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christine West" <cherokee@shelbynet.net> To: <INPCRP-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 10:38 PM Subject: [INPCRP] What does the Law Say? > Need your input on a question I was asked recently. We have a new Twp Trustee who sees it as his responsibility to maintain ALL cemeteries without a church or organization in his Twp. > > In 1994, a resident of this twp was charged with several counts of animal cruelty for keeping starving horses in a mud lot in the dead of the winter with no food until they were near death. Luckily, the DNR stepped in and an officer went to the pasture to video tape evidence of the case and stood on a little knoll in order to gain the best shot for his video. Later, when asking neighbors about the situation, one informed him the knoll he stood on was a pioneer cemetery. He went back in March of that year and found a few fragments of stones in amongst the manure. He was stunned and talked to a reporter at the paper who published 3 or 4 articles about it. > > The officer took his research to the state house and testified before the legislature for Rep. Lytle. He is one of the reasons we have these new laws to help protect such pioneer cemeteries as this one. > > When I was asked by the new trustee if I knew what he was suppose to do with this cemetery, which is on private ground (same owner) and barely anything left of it, I told him if he insisted on maintaining it and restoring it, the owner would probably charge him with trespassing or at least involve the sheriff a few times. > > I called the officer who is now out of the field and in an office in Indy, since this was the same cemetery he tried to save. He said he thought that back in 1994 when they first discovered the cemetery in that sad of a shape, the law read that the trustee was still responsible for it, private ground or not. The law was revised in 1997 and now says that trustees aren't responsible it if taxes are being paid by the landowner on it. He hasn't seen the new laws and asked that I call him back in a few weeks when he has had a chance to read them and figure out what it means. > > I thought I'd ask the group what their interpretation of the situation is. I need all the help I can get, a trustee as devoted as this one doesn't come along very often. A pioneer cemetery with a rich history is at stake as well. > > Thanks. > > > Cris West > Columbus, IN