Center Township Trustee Jesse Harper stood Friday at the entrance to a wilderness he recently found is his responsibility to tackle.
“It’s not in any of our records in the office,” he said. Maps make the abandoned cemetery appear to be in Liberty Township.
It’s Kine 3 Cemetery, so overgrown that Harper isn’t even sure where the headstones are.
There are two headstones near the entrance to the cemetery, but those are for dogs buried in 1972.
Presumably, the pioneer cemetery has people buried there, too. “Truth be told, we don’t know how many people are buried here, how many headstones are here,” Harper said.
James Coleman, who owns Edge of Liberty Farm on the other side of the fence, finally tracked down Harper, who’s responsible for maintaining abandoned cemeteries in the township, to let him know there’s one he didn’t know was in his township.
Kine 1 and Kine 2 cemeteries are nearby. Harper figured there had to be a Kine 3, too, but figured it was in Liberty Township. Not so.
The very edge of Coleman’s property runs right along the edge of the cemetery and the edge of the township, hence the name of his four-acre farm, Edge of Liberty.
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“Until I brought you out here, this gate hasn’t been opened in eight years,” Coleman said.
Harper believes there are at least some Kines buried in the cemetery. “That was a family that was very instrumental in the founding of Porter County,” he said.
When Coleman and his wife, Nancy Calafati, bought their property 10 years ago, they knew about the cemetery, but it was inaccessible. “It used to be a swampy, snake-infested area back here,” Coleman said. He put in a pond to drain the area and built a path to the cemetery.
“I was told it goes all the way back as long as this fence,” he said.
Calafati said it’s 24 feet by 24 feet.
The cemetery is wooded and so overgrown that Harper is hiring a crew to clear it out enough for volunteers to get in to work on cleaning it up so the dead can be given their due respect.
A Daughters of the American Revolution chapter is planning to help once they can get in.
“There are people whose hobby is to find these old cemeteries,” so they might be useful, Harper said.
Before that, though, Harper wants to get a surveyor in to show where the property lines are and get liability insurance to protect the volunteers and the township.
Clearing out the heavy undergrowth has to be done with care because the headstones’ locations aren’t known. They could even be under several inches of mud. “I could be standing on a headstone right now,” he said.
“It has to be done in a judicious way,” Harper said. “We don’t want to damage any of the headstones, any of the burial grounds.”
Access to the property isn’t direct. There’s no frontage on Calumet Avenue. The law would allow the township to acquire access by eminent domain, but Harper doesn’t want to go that route. “We’re just going to ask them nicely.”
Coleman has agreed to allow access through his property. “I think it would more than likely be some armchair historians coming in here,” along with the maintenance crew, once the cemetery is cleaned up, Harper said.
Harper is considering using a company that helps find buried headstones. He has seen exhibitors at the Indiana Township Association conventions in Indianapolis that offer the service.
Next spring, Harper hopes, the cemetery will be cleared out enough for the volunteers to go in. He’s urging anyone interested in helping to contact his office. He’s also eager to get the cemetery cleaned up after it has been neglected for many decades.
To volunteer, contact the Center Township Trustee’s Office at (219) 462-0810.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.