Thousands of vehicles pass through the intersection of Kessler Blvd and Keystone Av daily and only a few motorists and passengers notice the well-kept, fenced-in grassy lot on the southeast corner of the intersection with the American flag and the Indiana flag fluttering from two flagpoles above gravestones memorializing the Dickerson and Sargent families. This is Bacon Cemetery, a pioneer burial ground, whose headstones had long ago disappeared until Dorothea Sargent raised funds to honor her husband’s relative, Robert Dickerson, a Revolutionary War soldier.
Dickerson is one of more than three dozen veterans of the Revolution with their final resting place in Marion County, Indiana, and located along two busy city streets his gravesite is the most prominent. He was born in 1755 and enlisted in the Continental Line, serving as a private in the 2nd Virginia Regiment from 1778 until 1783. Dickerson eventually settled in Washington Township where he died on March 29, 1829.
While the Dickerson marker may be the most prominent patriot gravesite in the county, on the far southside in Perry Township amid the silent stones of Round Hill Cemetery, 5235 S. Meridian St, rests the mortal remains of a notable soldier of the Revolution, Sergeant John George, “George Washington’s drummer boy.” Born in Raritan, New Jersey on November 11, 1759, George enlisted as a drummer with the rank of private on January 1, 1777 in the First New Jersey Battalion which was part of the Maxwell Brigade, an elite unit of the Continental Army under the personal command of Washington. During his service, George wintered with Washington at Valley Forge and he was present at Yorktown when British General Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781. George was among the last of Washington’s Guard to be discharged in June 1783 with the rank of sergeant and he reportedly was personally decorated for his faithful service by the General with the badge of Military Merit. After leaving the Continental Army, George settled in Kentucky on a veteran’s land grant and in his old age he came to Marion County to live with his daughter. Sgt. John George died on November 28, 1847 and a few months later a comrade of the war, Edward Hall (b. June 22, 1760), a ranger of the Virginia Militia during the Revolutionary War, was laid to rest near him on April 15, 1848.
Four miles south and east of Round Hill Cemetery two patriot graves lay in Southport Cemetery, 2700 E. Southport Rd. Nineteen-year-old Samuel Bryan enlisted as a private in July 1775 and served at various times with Virginia and North Carolina troops. He was a member of the Illinois Expedition with General George Rogers Clark. Bryan died at the home of his son on March 4, 1837. Sergeant Alexander Monroe of the 2nd Virginia Brigade and 16th Regiment, Continental Line shares this hallowed ground with Bryan. He died on November 20, 1842 at the age of 84.
Throughout Marion County other veterans of the Revolution spent their final years in various townships. A memorial marker placed by the DAR at New Bethel Cemetery, Wanamaker, Indiana in Franklin Township honors Irish-born Robert Carr who served as a private in the Virginia Militia and fought in the battle of Guilford Courthouse in 1781. He came to the county around 1831 and died on July 4, 1833. In Waren Township, below the roar of the interstate, cool breezes waft through the McVey Cemetery, 299 S. Old Trails Rd, and across the gravesite of Private John Mitchell, an artillery artificer of the Pennsylvania Continental Line. He died in his ninety-second year on January 11, 1851.
William Reddick immigrated to Pennsylvania from Ireland with his parents and was a weaver by trade. He enlisted as a private in Col. John Patton’s Pennsylvania Regiment in 1777 and participated in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth, and the siege of Yorktown. In the fall of 1824, Reddick came to Lawrence Township, settling on a farm northwest of the mouth of Mud Creek. He died seven years later on October 3, 1831, age 69 and was buried in Spring Valley Cemetery, 5730 N. Post Rd. Another Marion County pioneer and soldier of the Revolution was Jacob Ringer. After serving as a private in the Maryland Militia, Ringer eventually came, with a colony of Lutherans, settling in Washington Township in 1824. He died on October 31, 1842 and was buried in Fall Creek Union Cemetery (Ebenezer Lutheran Cemetery), 4160 Millersville Rd.
Pike Township is the resting place for two Revolutionary War soldiers. John Hume, a private in the Pennsylvania Militia, who died in 1840 and was buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery, 8350 N. Moore Rd, and William Miller, who served in the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment, and died on November 8, 1840 and was buried in Crown Point Cemetery, 8200 W. Crown Point Rd. The National Cemetery section of Crown Hill Cemetery is the gravesite of John Morrow who enlisted in 1776 in the Pennsylvania Militia as a private. He later was an orderly and sergeant in Col. Frederick Watt’s Pennsylvania Regiment and served again as a private in the 1st Battalion, Cumberland County Militia. A short distance beyond the National Cemetery section lies the grave of Hezekiah Smith, a veteran of the American War of Independence who served with the 4th Hampshire County Regiment, Massachusetts Militia. He came to Marion County with his family shortly after its formation and died in the Trader’s Point area on April 26, 1824.
While several gravesites of the veterans of the Revolution who were living in Marion County at the time of their death are marked, sadly, although the cemetery is known where the remains of other patriots are at rest for eternity, time and elements have erased the markers and no memorial has been erected in those graveyards to honor these heroic soldiers. Unfortunately, little or nothing has been recorded about the final resting place for other Revolutionary War soldiers who spent their last years in Marion County. At the Cenotaph at the north end of the World War Memorial Plaza, the Indiana Society of the Sons of the American Revolution placed a marker dedicated to the memory of five of those patriots buried in unknown locations in the county.
We are fortunate in Marion County to have so many patriot gravesites that children of all ages can visit and take the time to learn and honor the sacrifices made by a few of those “…heroes proved in liberating strife….”
