Marshall County
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Poor Farm and Russell Cemeteries

A newspaper account recently treated the condition of an old abandoned cemetery in Knox county, the site turned pig sty. There are abandoned cemeteries in Marshall county. One that comes readily to mind is a small family plot in a pasture some three miles east of Lacon. If memory serves, it was once described as a burying ground for members of the Russell family. The plot has been enclosed with a fence and trees and shrubbery grows there – again, if memory serves.

Then there was over in LaPrairie township, the Poor Farm burial plot. A check produces the information that there are only two gravestones remaining on the plot. The plot, presumably belongs to the county and lies between land owned by the Dean Probyns and the Claude Webbers. No stones have been removed within the past fifteen or so years, Mrs. Probyn says. A number were removed prior to that time, she states. The plot is kept mowed by Mahlon Hunt, caretaker, and is unfenced. Time was, prior to 1930 or so, when the county (poor) farm was sold, that burials of indigents were fairly numerous and the place was overgrown with shrubs and trees. No one knows, even to estimate at this time, how many burials were made in the poor-farm graveyard.


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