Eckert Tombstone |
Tombstone Inscriptions of BakerHamlin Cemetery Cass Township Hancock County, Ohio |
Baker-Hamlin Cemetery April 2000 |
This cemetery is located 3.1 miles west of Arcadia, OH, south 0.75 miles on Township Road 238 at the intersection of Township Road 215. The cemetery name is referred to as Hamlin Cemetery with the alternative name of Baker Cemetery on USGS maps (83° 34' 28.9" W; 41° 05' 53.9" N). Land for the cemetery was donated by James Baker, son of Grafton Baker of Cass Township.
These readings, transcribed from "Tombstone Inscriptions from Cemeteries in Hancock County, Ohio Volume III, 1954 as compiled by Ruth KERNS MATTHEWS and Janice BARBER REDDIN, and as updated in 1989 by the Hancock County Genealogical Society, were verified by the author in conducting a detailed survey of the cemetery in April 2000. Footnotes to the index have been added by the author. Data added to the readings (as researched or calculated by the author) is in italicized magenta text. Rows are numbered from the front of the cemetery nearest County Road 238 to the back.
At the time of the 1954 readings, the cemetery was described as "inactive, but well kept".
In April 2000 the cemetery is still well-kept; the arch entrance referred to in 1948 is gone and the perimeter is defined by a simple chainlink fence. The sign on the cemetery entrance incorrectly identifies it as "Baker-Hanlin Cemetery". Some of the older stones have broken and the pieces are stacked by the more durable granite monuments. Other stones are lying on the ground, partially buried. There has been a recent effort to replace some of the stones to their original locations; however, several of the locations are not in accordance with either the 1954 or 1989 survey.
See the Findlay Republican-Courier newspaper of May 29, 1948 article following the index for an article about the cemetery's creation, history, inhabitants and condition at that time..
This website created by Gary L. Franks of Perrysburg, OH on 03 March 2001.
The following article about the cemetery appeared in the Findlay, OH Republican-Courier newspaper on Saturday morning May 29, 1948:
"In Honor of the Unknown Dead" reads the lettering on an archway erected just inside the Baker Cemetery in Cass Township, six miles northeast of Findlay. Whether the words refer to the unknown soldier dead or to all the unknown dead of times past is not quite clear, but certainly the thought is particularly appropriate at this time of year. Two G.A.R. flag standards, stuck into the ground beneath the arch, seem to complete the patriotic significance, though there was but one other G.A.R. marker in the cemetery earlier this week, on the grave of Robert E. (Ede) Hamblin, who once owned the farm from which the little cemetery originally was taken.
The cemetery is unique, in that all the marked graves bear the names of scarcely more than a half-dozen families - Baker, Hamblin, Cobb, Eckert, Thrush, Brenner, Mauser - all names long associated with the vicinity, many of them related. Though the cemetery has some of the aspects of a family burying ground, it is publicly owned and it is maintained by the trustees of Cass Township.
There are not more than 50 headstones in all, though there likely are many unmarked graves, for the burying ground has existed for well over 100 years and a number of the thin marble slabs obviously are broken, misplaced and scattered. Some graves are known to have been moved to other cemeteries.
The acre or so of ground contained in the neatly-mowed, fence-enclosed lot appears to have been dedicated as a cemetery and donated to the township by James Baker, who once owned the farm surrounding it, later owned by Robert Hamblin.
The graves of both are in the cemetery. Nearly all the marked graves are in the southeast corner of the area, with only a few scattered markers in other parts of the lot.
The earliest date appearing on a marker in the Baker Cemetery is on the grave of Angenetta Cobb, year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Cobb, who died in 1844. However, Mrs. Amanda Baker Huffman seems to remember that her grandmother, who was an Eckert, once told her that her brother, Winfield Eckert, was the first to be buried there. He was killed by a falling tree when he was just a young boy. He would have been a brother-in-law of the James Baker who gave the land.
The most recent grave is that of Frank Hamblin, who was buried there two years ago.
Separated from most of the graves are the headstones of three children of S. and S. Withrow who died within the space of a year or so in 1857-58.
The name Baker springs from a family that has owned and tilled land in the vicinity for more than a century. Grafton Baker settled there and took up the land about 1840. According to family tradition, Grafton Baker was one of seven brothers who migrated westward from Philadelphia. ***
Lemuel Baker, who lives on part of the farm of his father, the late Squire John Baker, relates that once he was traveling through Arkansas and had a night's lodging with a young farm couple there. The women's maiden name had been Baker. She had come from Nebraska, and she told the same story of the seven brothers who had migrated from Philadelphia. One of them, her ancestor, she had been told, settled in what is now Nebraska.
***According to the author's research, Grafton Baker emigrated to Hancock County from Stark and Harrison Counties (OH) in 1834. Additional evidence indicates the Baker Family originally came west from Maryland, probably through Virginia (now West Virginia) and eastern Ohio.
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Revised: 29 Mar 2015