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Looking Glass Township Cemetery

Southeast of New Memphis

Clinton County, Illinois

T1S R5W NWSW5

Read by Dorothy Falk dorothyf@intertek.net and Gloria Dettleff GDETTLEFF@aol.com 1 Dec 2001

The Looking Glass Township Cemetery, sometimes called the New Memphis City Cemetery, is about a quarter of a mile east of the junction of Rte 177 and Rte 160. It began as the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church cemetery when the church was at this location. Local residents say that at least two other cemeteries were moved to this one. One could be the Methodist Cemetery. One is probably the I.O.O.F. cemetery, which might have been moved when Rte 177 was built in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. These are not confirmed.

This is a recording of what we read from the stones plus data from three other sources – see below. There are six stones here for people born in the late 1700’s. The older, more apt to be buried, stones appear to be some of the English who settled here before the Germans arrived in large numbers. Many of the tombstones are severely weathered away. We transcribed the stones as they are engraved – Guildig is next to Gueldig, Coob is next to Koob, Krauss is next to Krausz, etc.

The written records of the early plot owners and of burials were destroyed. Current records are maintained by the Looking Glass Township. For the purposes of this listing, we have called the oldest area inside the circle drive Section 1. Again, for our purposes, Row 1 and Grave 1 start in the southeast corner. We called the area south of the circle drive Section 2, with grave and row numbering starting in the northwest corner so that others can be added as new burials are made. The back area to the east of the circle drive is called Section 3 with graves and row numbering starting in the northwest corner. Sections 2 and 3 are small enough and easy to read, we didn’t use grave numbers.

Township residents have told us that it has been assumed, but not known for a fact, that almost every grave in the oldest section has been filled. A new burial was made the week of 12 Nov 2001. There are markers for only 32% of the graves in the oldest section. And we have possible names but no grave locations for another 7%.

The State of Illinois recommended that County Clerks begin to keep track of the deaths/burials in 1878 and some, but not all, were recorded. When the law became stricter in 1916, more of the deaths were recorded. The death registers (Reg) identified some people that were buried in this cemetery, and some that were buried in New Memphis. If no stone was found in either place, those names were added to this listing. The St. Peter’s Lutheran church records (St P) and History also identified some people that were buried in this cemetery for which we didn’t find stones.

We included the people from both sources, it’s up to the researcher to decide if this is accurate.

The Veteran’s tombstones are annotated as either Private Head Stones (PHS) or Government Head Stones (GHS) for use by the Illinois Veterans’ Commission in their next publication

S/w means Shares stone with. Unknown means there is some piece of stone remaining there. If you know that one of your ancestors was buried here, you may send an email or you may add it to this listing and sign your name by the entry.

LGT - Stones still readable at the Looking Glass Township Cemetery

St P - Data transcribed from the St. Peter's microfilmed church records

Reg - From partial listing of the County Clerk's official Death Registers

Bur - Information from partial list of burial cards (from 1920 onward)

A-K

L-M

Note:

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