Posey Chapel Cemetery
Burials

Galena Township
La Porte County Indiana
© Copyrighted and reread 2015

		Posey Chapel Through The Seasons

For larger image of photos above, click on picture.

Updated with additional burials read on August, 2015 by: Jeanne (Lempke) Caddy and her sister, Ruth (Lempke) Judson. 
Our deepest thanks to these ladies. A note from their walk through - "We have included a row number for each headstone we found. 
The rows go North/South and the numbers start with rown number 1 nearest the pavilion. The headstones that do not have a row number are the 
ones on the website that we did not find. We walked the cemetery three times to make the list as accurate as possible. You will see at the end of the list
the number of headstones that we considered unreadable in each row."

Posey Chapel was built in 1841 for the families in the area of the Methodist faith. It was one of the county's older landmarks.
See our Galena Township church histories for photo and additional information. The Chapel was located next to the Posey Chapel Cemetery where,
for well over 175 years, families had laid their departed to rest.

Although many records state that the first burial at Posey was 1844 or 1845, old transcriptions of this cemetery show that
two infant sons of Thomas and Lucetta (Sutherland) Foster, who died in 1838 and 1839, are buried here. It is possible that others were buried
on the hill before it was designated as a cemetery or, as we have seen at other pioneer cemeteries individuals first buried near the family home may
have been removed and reinterred at the cemetery at a later date.

We currently over 570 names of individuals and unknown burials in Posey Cemetery , but experience has taught us that there are usually many others
who have been previously overlooked and the final count will likely be considerably higher. For some reason, some of the early cemetery readings
failed to list children’s graves, even though they are easily identified even today. Of the 570 names in our list, about 50 of them are MARTIN.
Considering that this number would not include the female family members whose married surname is not Martin and it is plain to see the overwhelming presence
of this family in the area. Other predominant surnames include Goit, Morrow, Smith and Sutherland.

More than any other in the county, Posey has been saddled with the reputation of being haunted. It’s unknown why
Posey has been singled out by Ghost Hunters and amateur ghost chasers to be a target of research and of published accounts of hauntings.
The stories range from a mysterious black dog appearing from nowhere and causing vehicles to crash to baby buggies rolling down the hill at midnight,
to a small child in the cemetery calling “MaMa”. Many of the accounts can be chalked up to the imagination, power of suggestion and just plain fabrication.
While it’s certainly not in my power to determine whether there may be occasional visits to Posey by unrested soles, it seems highly unlikely there are
malicious or evil spirits wandering the area.

Below are many of the burials in Posey Chapel Cemetery. Keep in mind that Posey Chapel Cemetery is very close to the Michigan and Indiana state line.
If you can not find your ancestor in the La Porte Census, you might try the county next door, Berrien County Michigan.
Email us at laportecountyin@yahoo.com

Posey Chapel History

Posey Chapel Cemetery by Row order next page

Alphabetical Listing of Burials listed below are a combination of burial readings, marriage records and internet sources.
NL = Stone not located at newest reading.

Additional burial information