Cass Co. IAGenWeb

Judd Cemetery

The Judd or McGee Cemetery, a now abandoned cemetery, is located upon sections on the south line between Section 18 & 19, 1 and 1/2 miles south of the Wiota cemetery, and about 500 feet from the road in a clump of trees surrounded by barbed wire. The lot, while only about 30 feet east and west and 50 feet north and south, is bisected by a line fence between the Clifford Wright and Bruce Behrends farms. Several monuments lying in the grass have identifiable names. The first burial was that of an infant child of William and Malinda Judd, in the spring of 1855. The babe was never named, as he died when but a small child. The cemetery was never regularly laid out, but was used for burial purposes in an early day, simply for the want of a suitable spot dedicated to the uses this was put to.

On July 3, 1858 a flash flood occurred in Jim Branch , a creek below a hill where the Nelson Prall family were residing. The house in which the family was sleeping, was removed from 'its foundation and carried down stream one-third of a mile, when it, a tree or something else and up-set turning all the occupants into the stream. Thomas Prall, a cousin of Nelson, his wife and one child, were also in the house, but Thomas Prall managed to save himself and wife, but while rescuing his wife lost the child. The sixth victim of the flood was Henry Baldwin a carpenter, who drowned the following day in an attempt to reach his home by swimming the swollen river. All the bodies of the drowned were recovered the next day when the water receded. Since the nearest cemetery was at Lewis and could not be reached because of high water, the flood victims were buried in Turkey Grove in a grove of trees on the nearby Magee farm.

A detailed account of the 1858 flood has been transcribed from a vintage Atlantic News Telegraph article.

Only a few graves, as near as can be determined 12 burials, were made here, as the burying of bodies here was abandoned, on the opening of the Jameson cemetery a few years later. Mr. Judd and Mr. McGee and families were buried in the Wiota or Jameson Cemetery. Very little now remains of the cemetery. It has been abandoned and surrounded by barbed wire. Only a couple of the remaining stones are readable and those are not necessarily on their original positions. Dates for all the others are taken from obits and newspaper articles at the time.