Ackworth Cemetery

ACKWORTH CEMETERY is located in the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 23 of Lincoln Township. To reach the cemetery, follow Highway 92 east out of Indianola for four miles. As you enter Ackworth, the cemetery is on the north next to the Ackworth Friends Church.
The earliest settlers began to pitch tents near present-day Ackworth as early as 1846. David Lair arrived March 27, 1846 from Clinton, Ohio, and was accompanied by Alexander Ginder, William Ginder, Thomas Feagins, and Matthias Reynolds. In April, 1846, R.M. Hightower, Thomas Hightower, Dillon Haworth, Jonathan and William Dillon and Sanford Brown arrived, followed in June by Samuel Haworth.

Many of these early settlers were members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, and they met in homes in the area which was called South River Settlement.. Other early families were Lair, Carey, Barnett and Henderson. The pioneers had come from the timbered regions of Ohio and Indiana and chose to settle in the timber of Lincoln township rather than on the prairie.

The first marriage in the township took place December 16, 1847 between Paris P. Henderson, who came to the county in October, 1847, and Miss Martha Haworth. They obtained their license at Fort Des Moines. The first child born near the South River Settlement was a daughter born to William Ginder on September 15, 1848. The next day a son, John Hancock Henderson, was born to P.P. Henderson in a log cabin west of the present church. The third day a daughter was born to Jonathan Dillon.

The first death in the area was a child of Thomas Feagin's who died in the fall of 1846. Early burials were made northwest of the settlement in Goshen Cemetery near the Goshen Meeting House. Goshen members joined with the South River Settlement for worship, so the meeting house and cemetery were abandoned. At that time, Pleasant Bond and Sally Bond, for the consideration of Love and Esteem, conveyed to the Society of Friends Samuel Owens, Benjamin Hensbow, and Elias Newlin as trustees of the South River Monthly and to their successors two acres of land. In Plat Book 1, Page 84, the deed was recorded on May 11, 1860. In 1852 the first burial was made in the present-day Ackworth Cemetery. Land was given for the cemetery and meeting house by members of the Society of Friends. In Deed Book 11, page 49, Mahlon Haworth and his wife Mary, deeded to the Trustees of the South River Monthly, a tract of land consisting of three acres for the consideration of Love and Esteem. This is dated June 4, 1860. The plots in the east part of the cemetery are shown as being the east 129 feet with lots varying from 9X4 feet to 9X21 feet. The west side is at an angle and is six lots wide, then there is a drive was 6 feet 8 inches wide, and then a row of lots 9X9 feet and two rows 9X21 feet each.
In the fall of 1852. Nathan Craven, coming from North Carolina, bought the last whole quarter section of 160 acres and paid the government price of $1.25 per acre. The township of Lincoln was filled up. Ackworth was laid out by J.M. and J.H. Haworth. In 1852, the Quakers built their first meeting house, a long, low, frame building. Additions were made to it as the Society of Friends grew.
In 1868 Jeptha Morgan, Isaac Starbuck, George D. Haworth, John Tomlinson, Samuel and Jeremiah and John H. Haworth and others formed a stock company to establish an Academy for education. They took stock to $6,000 in five dollar shares and after a hard struggle, a two-story, 40X60 foot, brick building was erected. An Englishman named Braithwaite, from Ackworth, England, donated $1,000 for a library in the Academy, so the school was named Ackworth after the oldest Society of Friends school in England. Professor Eli W. Beard was the first teacher at the Ackworth Academy.
J.W. Morgan secured the establishment of a Post Office and called it Friend's Grove. In 1871 the name of South River Quarterly Meeting was changed to Ackworth. The town was named Ackworth in 1874 and was incorporated June 1, 1881.
In 1908 the Academy building was remodeled at a cost of $2,800 for meeting purposes. The church building was destroyed by fire on December 24, 1924 and the early church and cemetery records were lost in that fire. Many of the records had perviously been copied by the Quakers and are on file at Penn College in Oskaloosa, and also on microfilm at the State Historical Library in Des Moines. The church was rebuild using the old walls and the cost was $7,250. The new building was dedicated August 16, 1925.
In 1968 the Ackworth Garden Club established a Memory Garden in the cemetery. A bench and planter was added to beautify Memorial Gardens. Many roses and trees were planted as memorials to loved ones. The Ackworth Cemetery is under the care of the Ackworth Cemetery Improvement Association. Recently more land was added to the cemetery.

Ackworth Cemetery contains row after row of white, limestone gravestones which represent the oldest part of the cemetery. Most are legible. These white stones were cut from the DeVore hill, the long hill east out of Ackworth and west of the Palmyra Road. Scattered among the old white stones are field stones, many bearing Roman numerals. These field stones mark the graves of the early Quakers. Their law formerly required that graves be marked with native stone that was no larger than 12 inches. Each stone was marked with hand-hewn Roman numerals, some of which are no longer visible. The Roman numerals were assigned according to the order of burial in the cemetery, and the Quakers kept excellent records of who each number stood for. The field stones exemplify the Quaker ideals of simplicity and plainness. Death was the great leveler, so the Quakers forbid fancy, frivilous headstones.
Cemetery and Death Records of Warren County, Iowa, Warren County Genealogical Society, Walsworth Publishing Company, Marceline, Missouri: 1980.

View records submitted to the Iowa Gravestone Photo Project for Ackworth Cemetery.