Indiana Spirit Quest:
McDowell

(Photos by Donsdi)

An Indiana Spirit Quest is generally a cemetery (it can be other things pioneer) that holds pieces of our history and heritage. It leads us to the pioneers who settled here, the people who fought the wars at home and away; to the children who never had a chance and are the reminders to be thankful for all that modern medicine gives us. A spirit quest cache takes us to peaceful, quiet places and hopefully it gives us some history that we never knew we wanted to know.

Welcome to Madison Township, Montgomery County. We’ve brought you to a place that begs the question of “what constitutes a cemetery?”. After doing some research and reading more of the Indiana Code, Chapter 33”Application and Definitions of Cemetery Law” then I ever cared to we have theanswer. IC 23-14-33-7 “Cemetery” means any land or structure in Indiana that is: (1) dedicated to, and (2) used for, or intended to be used for , the interment, entombment or inurnment of human remains. Based on this we feel this cannot be considered a cemetery. It is a stone that memorializes the family plot that was here before a farmer sometime in the past plowed it under.

John McDowell was born 1 Jan 1792 in Woodford, KY to James and Sarah Gorrell McDowell. His parents moved the family to Scioto, OH. This is where he met his wife, Elizabeth Price, whom he married 7 Jan 1819. They lived and farmed in the Scioto, OH area until about 1828 which is when they moved to Indiana. They had a son while in Tippecanoe County in 1829. Then, 3 Jan 1831 he bought 80 acres of ground in Montgomery Co. In Feb he bought 67 additional acres and another 80 acres in March. He and his wife had 3 more sons and a daughter after establishing their farm in Montgomery Co. John died 16 Jan 1843. His wife is listed as being buried in Illinois in 1880 at the age of 82.

John’s mother, Sarah Gorrell McDowell was also buried here. Her husband passed away in Ohio and she moved with her sons to Indiana. I say sons as John’s brother, Hiram(Hiraman), 1798-1847 and Good(Woodford), 1796-1847 are also buried here. There are discrepancies with the birth dates and with the names. If you go to the cemetery data base for Montgomery Co you will find more discrepancies for the 2 brothers. Their deaths are probably attributable to the global influenza epidemic of 1847.

As an added bit of background for the family, their father, James McDowell was born in Ireland. He came to America to the Virginia colony. He fought in the Revolutionary War out of Virginia.

We couldn’t find any information about when this commemorative stone was placed.

The cache container is a micro log only along the line of a bison..