We are indebted to Vera Mae Dodder of Muscatine for the following story of the Linn Grove cemetery.
She writes: This cemetery is in Concord township, Louisa county, Iowa, three miles southwest of Letts. Iowa on the Butts & Turkington farm.
The ground for this cemetery was given by Jacob Shellabarger in 1836
or 1837 to be used as a cemetery.
There were three families who, came from Ohio then. They were the Jacob Shellabarger, Joseph Beard and James Newell families. About ten days after the Jacob Shellabarger and Joseph Beard families came, Joseph Beard got sick and died. As there were no cemeteries I then they began to look for a place to bury him. So Jacob Shellabarger. a large land owner, gave the ground for this cemetery.
It used to be a nice cemetery, but after some of the older ones died
and others moved away, it was not cared' for like it should have
been but the years of 1961 and 1962 Larry Beenblossom and son, Columbus
Junction, have been looking after it and it is well cared for now.
Some have moved bodies to other cemeteries.
There are twenty-three or twenty-four graves still there. The ones who are still buried there are, Jane Beard Shellabarger, wife of Jacob Shellabarger and their daughter, Fanny Shellaharger, Joseph and Margaret Brown, daughter of Jacob and Jane Beard Shellabarger. George W. and Mary Jane Brown Dodder, daughter of Joseph and Margaret Shellabarger Brown and their three children, Genetta, Margaret, infant and Harry Orville Dodder, Joseph and Adriana Nevis Beard and their two sons, Joseph and William. One of these died, of cholera and can never be moved. Mrs Flack, Mr. Downs of Brighton, Iowa Isaia Harrison's first wife and baby and another Mrs. Harrison, mother of Isaia Harrison, Mrs. Knott. Later Mrs Danny Thompson, mother of Bell Knott Burnett. George Bennetts baby. Two children of Charles Miller, who used to have a restaurant at Letts. One Sala child and leg of Iona Sal Fritz. Henry Grim. Mrs. Grim, first wife of James Grim and a Schlichting.