19 April 2012

Hancock County, Illinois Has Two Webster Cemeteries

Hancock County, Illinois, is pretty rural. I should know--I grew up there. 

Locations can easily have more than one cemetery with the same name. Names such as "Memorial Park," "Memorial Gardens," are pretty common. But two cemeteries named Webster Cemetery? Yes, there's two cemeteries named Webster Cemetery in Hancock County.

I learned this the hard way when I was first doing research in my early teens. I discovered that a brother of my great-great-grandmother was buried in the Webster Cemetery. And silly me. Knowing that there was a small spot in the road named Webster in Hancock County, I thought that was where he was buried. I think I even convinced one of my parents to go over with me to the Webster Cemetery to look for him.

And William T. Newman was nowhere to be found in the Webster cemetery near the Village of Webster.

That was because on further research, I learned there was another Webster Cemetery in Hancock County--in St. Albans Township. At the time it seemed odd to me that William was buried in the Village of Webster Cemetery as none of the family ever lived there. St. Albans Township made a lot more sense given where most of the family lived.

William T. was born in Indiana in 1841 and died in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1895. There is a picture of his stone on Findagrave.


And the United States Geological Survey indicates in the notes on the Webster Cemetery that there are two such locations in Hancock County.


One never knows how many places will have the same or similar names within close proximity to each other.