Peck Cemetery (aka Laverty Cemetery & Epps Cemetery)

PECK CEMETERY is located in the northeast corner of the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 5 of Lincoln Township.
An early settlement was made on the south side of Middle River.  Matthew Spurlock came about 1846 and settled in Section 5.  James Laverty arrived in September, 1847, from Park County, Indiana, and purchased Spurlock’s claim. 
William, George, Dan and John Peck came from Indiana with James Laverty in 1847.  James’ father, John M. Laverty, came to the area in 1848.  The first birth in the settlement was a son, John, born to Mr. and Mrs. James Laverty in March of 1848.
In Deed Book D, page 582, Ruth Lee, a widow, conveyed to Joseph Hannum, for cemetery purposes and as part of the cemetery known by the public as Peck Cemetery, situated a little over five miles northeast of Indianola, and which the land together with the two acres in addition has been used for cemetery purposes prior to the date of the said deed until the present time and that there has been a large number of deceased persons in different families buried on said ground, and that said land has never been platted.  It is not intended that Joseph Hannum own said land wholly and only in his own right, but that it was made to him because he had friends and relatives buried there and there was no one authorized to take the deed.  The title he holds to it was simply as trustee for the benefit of those families who were and would be buried in said cemetery.

This 1872 map shows the area of the 1st Warren County Poor Farm in Lincoln Township, T77N, R23W, sections 32 & 33 (surrounded in red). It existed from 1854 to 1869. About 1/2 mile south is the Peck Cemetery, Lincoln Township, T76N, R23W, section 5 (squared in red). [click on image to enlarge]

The Warren County Farm was established as a refuge for the poor, the disabled and the unfortunate, and consisted of 160 acres close to the Peck Cemetery.  George Washington Epps was hired by the County Supervisors to run the County Farm, and he and many members of his family are laid to rest at Peck Cemetery.  Several residents of the County Farm are also buried there.  In 1869 the County Farm was declared too small and a new Warren County Farm was purchased southwest of Indianola. 
On June 7, 1907, Joseph Hannum and Elizabeth Hannum, his wife, of Jackson County, Kansas, conveyed to the trustees of Lincoln Township, and dedicated to the public use for cemetery purposes, land of sixteen rods by ten rods, thirty rods south of the northeast corner of the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 5 of Lincoln Township, preserving for himself and others who have now and heretofore friends and relatives buried on said ground and the right to continue the use thereof shall be fully preserved.
Joseph and Elizabeth Hannum have a family plot fenced within Peck Cemetery.  Peck Cemetery is also referred to as Epps or Laverty Cemetery.  Joseph Dickinson Moore, great-great grandfather of former President Richard M. Nixon in buried in Peck Cemetery.   Inscriptions from this cemetery were copied on June 10, 1968 by Edith Conn.
Information from Richard McCoy concerning Peck Cemetery:  George Washington Epps came to Warren County in 1850 and homesteaded fifty acres.  His father was an American Revolutionary War soldier and was a captain from the Virginia militia.  His name was John W. Epps.  He came to Iowa to visit and died in Warren County.  He was the first burial in the cemetery.
Peck Cemetery covered five and one-half acres.  The northeast corner of the cemetery was for the Warren County Farm burials.  Members of the Epps family were buried in the southwest corner and soldiers were buried in the northeast.  For years a double row of trees lined the lane back to the cemetery.  In the late 1930s a fence was put up in the lane.

Copied in part from 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 Peck Cemetery.