Says Eleanor:
"The task of re-creating cemetery records is like putting together a jig-saw puzzle; we had pieces of information from people who had walked the cemetery before, listings in WPA and County Court House records and a partial listing of lot owners. "

Eleanor started from scratch in creating a revised listing of Harker burials.  Along with her husband, Robert, and her  niece Jennifer Barrington, Eleanor read and mapped every marker.  She  then  went to the County court house and searched for the death records of those listed on the various listings and the mapping done at the cemetery.  Probate records for those who died in between July 1917 - May 1941 were used to clarify the dates of death as much as possible.

Next, Eleanor had to decipher the "logic"  used in each areas as described by the Plat map. That was quite a challenge for the stones were not aligned in nice straight rows with paths clearly defined between each Block. Nor were the Lots numbered in the same shaped pattern and shared consistent dimensions. To make it more confusing, at times gravemarkers were placed at the foot of the grave, others at the head of the grave and then there were some placed in the middle. It is always sad to find broken stones and worse to find them in a pile, but these too had to be factored into the equation.

On November 19, 2001, the Sweetland Township Trustees were presented with two copies of all the documentation on Harker Cemetery Records. Their book of 220 pages contains the cemetery’s history, notes from the old cemetery book, glossary of terms, cemetery plat, lot owner index, lot owner register, a burial register according to Block, Lot and grave number and a burial record index. In every section are blank lines so they may enter future information.  

Other names for Harker Cemetery found in County Court records and obituaries are Sweetland Cemetery, Sweetland Burying Ground, Harker Grave Yard and Hacker’s or Hawkers Burying ground. WPA records described area as Harker Cemetery on Flat Iron Point (a description several area residents disagree with).
 
 

From Route 61, five miles east of Muscatine, turn south on Sweetland Road. Travel a mile or so then turn East on 180th Street (gravel road). Cemetery is 1/4 mile on your left.

The land on which the cemetery sits was deeded to the Sweetland Trustees by Joseph N. Harker and his wife, Lydia on 25th day of April 1853. The deed is filed in the Muscatine County Book of Lands ‘R’ on page 209.
It reads in part:
 

In consideration of One Dollar, to us in hand paid by the Trustees of Sweetland Township in the County of Muscatine and State of Iowa, we have, and by these presents, do give grant and sell to them the said Trustees, in trust for the purposes hereafter explained, the following to wit:

Commencing at the South East corner of Section Nine, in Township Seventy Seven Range One West; thence running North Four chains and Seventy four links, thence South Forty one degrees and thirty minutes West, four chains and Sixty six links, to a Birch tree (center); thence south one chain and Seventy-seven links, then East three chains and forty six links to the place of beginning, containing one and twelve hundredths acres more or less. (Chains are Four Rods; one hundred links to a chain). To have and to hold to the said Trustees and their successors, forever, as a Burying Ground, in which to bury and any and all, white persons who may be brought there for sepulture, under such rules and regulations as said Trustees may from time adopt, and for no other purposes whatever. In testimony whereof, we have, hereto set our hands this 25th day of April A.D. 1853.

The 23rd day of January 1885, an addition was made to the cemetery when David Robinson and his wife Mary Ann, sold to the Harker Cemetery Association 51/100 of an acre for thirty three dollars. A plat of the cemetery was filed in the Muscatine County Book of Lots ‘15’ pg. 539 on 16th day of February 1885.

A small strip of land was sold to the Harker Cemetery Association for the sum of one dollar by C.F. Holtz and Amelia A. Holtz, his wife for the purposes for a roadway to the cemetery. This transaction was made on 22 March 1907.

b. = date of birth
d. = date of death
dau = daughter of na = none
obit = Obituary from newspaper
Co. Court rec. = Muscatine County Court House Records
GAR = Grand Army of the Republic - Civil War Era
WPA = Gravestones copied by W.P.A. Graves Registration Project.
 
 

NAMES ARE SPELLED AS THEY APPEAR IN CEMETERY RECORDS.

CORRECTIONS OR ADDITIONS SUBMITTED BY WEBSITE VISITORS WILL BE IN RED