Gose Family Cemetery
Warren Township
Putnam County, Indiana
Researched and Produced by
Scot Shively and Beth Shively
Little information exists about the Gose Cemetery, probably because it is a small family burial ground on private land. Marilyn and Doyle Swisher visited the cemetery in February 1965 and copied what they could read from the gravestones they could find. Apparently, Mary Gose’s stone was broken even then since her age at death was not noted. The Swishers were thoughtful enough to deposit their record of the cemetery in the Putnam County public library. Without their effort, some of the information we know today may have remained a mystery.
The cemetery is very hard to find unless you have a good map or can go with someone who knows its location. The cemetery is on private property and there is no access to it except on foot. The cemetery is located in Warren Township, Putnam County, Indiana (T13N R4W) about 0.5 mile west from a gravel road and about 250 feet north of Deer Creek. The cemetery is on the top of a small hill under a large fir tree.
Our first trip to the Gose cemetery was in June 1996. The land was being used as a cow pasture. The pasture was bordered by barbed wire and contained tall grass. The large fir tree marking the cemetery’s location had lost its top, probably to lightening.
Upon arriving at the cemetery, we found the gravestones broken and strewn around the base of the fir tree. The only stone intact was Walter Crews’, since his stone is thick marble. Searching around the base of the tree, we found the concrete bases in which the stones had been set. We located all the stones on Swisher’s sheet except the “Dau.” entry. We did find a toestone marked “DAG” (which may have been mistaken for “Dau”) and two other pieces of stone not mentioned by Swisher.
We found the base for Darius’ stone but couldn’t locate the stone itself. After probing the ground with a machete, the stone was discovered buried under about 8 inches of sod and soil. We uncovered it and discovered the last line containing Darius’ age at death (information that was not included on the Swisher page).
We were able to determine the original location of each stone by the relative position of the pieces and matching thickness, type, and width of the embedded portion of the stone in the concrete base with the broken off tombstones. We matched the pieces together using the information from the Swisher’s 1965 survey.
The south end of the cemetery, over Darius’ and Mineal’s graves and continuing down the hill, is covered in iris. Undoubtedly, some family member must have planted the flowers and over time they spread out and down the hill.
We decided to put this book together to bring all the information together. We made a return visit to the cemetery to take photos in June 1997. Today, the only remnants of the cemetery are fragments of tombstones piled up against the trunk of the large fir tree.
Edward P., Darius B. and James L. Gose are sons of John and Mary Gose. Mineal L. Gose is the daughter of Darius B. and his wife, Fannie. Walter A. Crews is the son of Sophia Adeline Gose, a daughter of John, and Sophia’s husband, Sennell W. Crews.
The earliest known burial is that of John Gose in 1862 and the latest is Mary Gose in 1877. The death dates for Edward P. and the D? Ann Gose are unknown. The cemetery seems to have been used for arelatively short period of time.
While doing research in Putnam County, we visited a distant cousin, William S. Hurst. As he was looking over our family generation charts, he saw our information about John Gose. He related the following story told to him when he was young: “Mary Jane Gose, daughter of John and Mary, used to get on her hands and knees and take care of the family plot. The graveyard was always in exceptional condition under her care. She took care of the cemetery all her life until she was unable to get around.”
