Salem Cemetery: the congregation's ground in the township's keeping

ASH ROAD AT BRUMMITT ROAD · BESIDE NEW SALEM UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, 52173 ASH ROAD

The second of the township's two grounds stands where the township ends: Salem Cemetery, on Ash Road against the St. Joseph–Elkhart county line, north of Brummitt Road — the federal geographic record fixes it at 41.73551, −86.06291, by West County Line Road and Brummitt — beside the Salem church ground, church and burying ground together in the farm pattern. It is the Evangelical congregation's burying ground: the congregation of Howard's list that worships today as New Salem United Methodist Church, at 52173 Ash Road, under the name course the Religion section traces through the national mergers. Together the two township grounds carry the farm century's dead — in the Religion section's sentence, "the Harrises and Ringles and Baldwins of Howard's settler list and the German families of the Salem congregation" — the German names of the Evangelical settlement lying here, on the prairie's eastern edge, as the prairie's own first families lie on Adams Road.

Salem shares Harris Prairie's keeping and its rule exactly: the township maintains it as one of its two cemeteries, sells no new sites in it, and buries only those who can prove lot ownership — the Government leg's record, which counts the two grounds together at hundreds of grave sites each. The federal graves record carries the ground under its church's address: the Department of Veterans Affairs' burial listing enters Salem Cemetery at 52173 Ash Road, Granger — the church's number doing duty for the burying ground beside it — and names its veterans there, among them an Army sergeant first class of the Korean era. Joseph County Public Library, named as the settler. The cemetery's founding rides the same settler, and is entered in the closing roll.

Sources:

1. The Government leg of this build — Salem Cemetery's seat on Ash Road against the county line, north of Brummitt Road; the township's two-cemetery keeping and burial rule.
2. The Religion section of this build — the Evangelical congregation at 52173 Ash Road under its name course; the ground as the congregation's burying ground in the township's trust; the settler families of the two grounds; the congregation-records gap and its named keepers.
3. U.S. Geological Survey GNIS, via GraveRoots — Salem Cemetery, GPS 41.73551, −86.06291; one of exactly two cemeteries the record names in Harris Township.
4. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs burial records, via Interment.net — Salem Cemetery entered at 52173 Ash Road, Granger, with its veterans named.