Rich Square Friends Cemetery

Franklin Township - 1833

   This old cemetery is located on county road #225 east, just south of Interstate #70 and just east of Indiana #103 in section 7 in Franklin Township, Henry County, Indiana. It was set a side on 31 Aug 1833 when Nathan Reece and Ed Bond deeded 4 acres of land to James S. Butler, Isaac Larkin and Nathan Reece, the elected trustees of the Rich Square Quaker church of the Milford MM of Quakers for the purpose of constructing a house of worship, a schoolhouse and a burial ground for the use of the members of said church.    In the mid 19th century the Rich Square neighborhood was a fairly active community neighborhood, with many activities going on at the church and school, it was a very well known place in Henry County. But just like the Bethel neighborhood, the Hopewell neighborhood and others mentioned on this website, it gradually died off with families moving to the cities and the industrial age coming on with its good paying jobs, farming and agriculture jobs soon died off.    The cemetery is still in use even though the church went under a few years ago after many of the members passed away or most of the other members moving to the more modern temple in the big city of New Castle. The last recorded burial was in 2004. The cemetery is well maintained by the former church members, the grounds are mowed regularly and the church is used every year for a home coming picnic.    Tom Hamm and the New Castle Junior High School History Club originally recorded the tombstones here in 1973, with many of the listed names coming from the Quaker church records, this being a Quaker burial ground, many of the burials were unmarked. I re-visited this cemetery in August of 2005 and found and recorded all of the additional and latest burials. There is still space for many more burials, if needed, in this cemetery.