Randolph Cemetery

RANDOLPH CEMETERY is located in the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 11 of the White Oak Township. To reach this cemetery, go south out of Indianola on Highway 65-69, turn west at the gravel road going past the Indianola Airport, then continue west for about 2 miles. Access to the cemetery is through a farm gate. This is one of the oldest cemeteries in the county. The following article appeared in the Record and Tribune in 1949.

THE FORGOTTEN CEMETERY
Mrs. W.W. Davis

Mrs. Davis was the mother of Bryan, Daisy and Charles Davis. She has lived most of her life in the immediate vicinity of this cemetery, which may be forgotten by most people, but not by Mrs. Davis. From childhood until physically unable to do so, she carried flowers every Memorial Day and placed them on six graves in the cemetery on the hill overlooking Squaw Creek. Mr. and Mrs. Davis live a quarter mile east of the cemetery on the first road south of South River leading from Highway 65 west to the Hoosier Row Road.
John and Margaret Adamson and two small children, Mary and Thomas, came to Warren County and located in a cabin on Section 10 White Oak Township about 40 rods east of Squaw Creek. On October 11, 1849, John died at the age of 33 years and 6 months, leaving his wife, his daughter Mary, his son Thomas and an unborn baby, who was a son named Simon. John was buried a short distance east of the home in Section 11. This was the beginning of the cemetery.
On April 7, 1851, the son Thomas died and was buried beside his father. Thomas was 9 years old. White marble stones mark these two graves and are standing in good condition.
An aged man and his wife are buried just west of the Adamson's and native stones mark their graves. At one time, a wooden marker marked the grave of a small child buried to the southwest of these four graves.
In 1907 a newborn baby, a son of Joe and Fanny Pearson, was buried beside John Adamson. A little gray marker marks this grave. This was the last to be buried in this cemetery. There are fourteen graves in all, of which eight are lost.
The Warren County records show that in 1852, Ward Lamson transferred the SW 80 acres of Section 10 and the SW 80 acres of Section 11 to Margaret Adamson for the sum of $55.00. Margaret set aside two acres in the SW corner of Section 11 for the cemetery, to be used for burial purposes only.
It is fenced on two sides by barbed wire and the six graves mentioned are fenced with a high woven wire and hedge posts.
Margaret Adamson sent her corn and wheat to Keokuk with neighbors to be ground into meal and flour. When Simon was older he helped to provide meat for the family by trapping wild turkeys and prairie chickens. Simon served in the Civil War and married Mary Jane McCampbell, who was an aunt of the author of this sketch.
Margaret Adamson was later married to Albert Randolph. To this union, two sons were born; Marion and Grant Randolph. Mary Adamson, the daughter, married her step-brother John, the son of Albert.

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 Randolph Cemetery.