Beech Grove Cemetery

Muncie, Indiana – or Munseytown as it was then known – was founded in the mid-1820s on a plot of land donated by Goldsmith C. Gilbert, Lemuel Jackson, and William Brown. Although the town was named the Delaware County soon after its establishment, the new settlement grew slowly in its early years and was not incorporated as a town until 1854. Eleven years later, in 1886, Muncie was incorporated as a city.  

In 1876, an area farmer drilling a well encountered a foul smell and a strange rumbling sound, both seeping up from the ground. This hole, popularly believed to be the entrance to Hell, was quickly covered and virtually forgotten by the farmer. Ten years later, however, it was realized that the hole had contained natural gas, and east Indiana’s “gas boom” was underway. For the next fifteen years, the gas wells burned constantly, many industries such as the Ball Brothers’ glass company were lured to town by the virtually free fuel, and Muncie became a major manufacturing center.  

By 1901, however, the seemingly inexhaustible gas resources had been almost completely depleted. Many of the factories left the area; although, enough remained to provide an industrial base for the city’s continued, but much slower, growth. The decade from 1910 to 1920 was a period of growth for Muncie and Delaware County, Indiana, this time centered around an expanding automobile industry and the manufacturing demands of World War I. In 1885, the population of Muncie was approximately six thousand residents, but within the next five years, it nearly doubled; and in 1920, the city had almost thirty-five-thousand citizens. 

Beech Grove Cemetery existed as a publicly owned burial prior to Muncie being incorporated as a city, and its history is inextricably linked to the city’s. The first recorded public cemetery in Muncie was at the east end of town, on the north side of Main Street and east of Beacon Street. The second was on the north side of Adams Street, west of Franklin Street, and was composed of approximately two city lots. As the community grew, however, the size of both these in-town sites proved to be inadequate. To alleviate this problem, the trustees of Munseytown purchased one and one-half acres on the outskirts of town from Moses Eby in 1841. The site had been used as a burial ground by Delaware Indians who had previously lived in the area, and it was known as Beech Knoll because of the beech trees which lined the White River there. Many of the bodies that had been interred in existing cemeteries were moved to Beech Grove; therefore, a few of the tombstones predate 1841.  

Beginning in 1858, additional land was purchased to the south, west, and east of the 1841 lot, primarily in small parcels of less than ten acres. In 1902, the largest addition was made with the acquisition of fifty-one acres of the John Galbraith farm, southwest of the original cemetery boundaries. Six additional city lots were purchased in 1906, bringing the cemetery to its current boundaries.  

Throughout its existence, Beech Grove had been municipally owned and operated by the city government. Prior to April 1905, the cemetery was administered by a Cemetery Committee of the City Council. In that year, however, the City Council adopted an ordinance with established a five-member Board of Trustees charged with full control of the cemetery. The first Board was composed of five of Muncie’s leading citizens: George McCulloch, C. H. Over, Edward Tuhey, L. W. Cates, and W. A. Petty. This five-Trustee system is still in use today at Beech Grove Cemetery. 

The earliest burial places in the United States were generally found in churchyards or public greens. Because of their small, in-town locations, these graveyards were limited in the number of people who could be interred there, and in the amount of landscaping or other ornamentation which could be included. In the early nineteenth century, however, people began to recognize the need for larger cemeteries located farther away from the town centers, for health, space, and aesthetic reasons. These “rural” cemeteries featured diverse landscapes and many elements of the picturesque style as defined by Andrew Jackson Downing. Characteristics of the style are irregular lines, abrupt and broken surfaces, natural and wild plant growth, and rustic buildings in the Gothic, Old English, Italian Villa, or Swiss Cottage style.  

Beech Grove Cemetery, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed January 13th 2021. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/132002856.

A History of Beech Grove Cemetery, Beech Grove Cemetery. Accessed January 13th 2021. https://www.beechgrovecemetery.com/about-us/.