Tim and Mark’s Database of Keesling's

Cemetery notes and/or description:
The Keesling Cemetery was started in 1845 with the death of William Jasper Kisling, son of Jacob "Jake" Kisling and Catharine "Caty" Sheffer Kisling. William was 22 years old. Oral tradition tells us that William was killed by a fall from a horse on 13 Apr 1845. He was returning from a trip to Mechanicsburg to his parent's log cabin. When the horse returned home without him, his father tracked the path of the horse and found his son on the trail, dead from a broken neck. For the next 100 years, the family of Jake and Caty, our family patriarch and matriarch, was buried in the Keesling Cemetery. It was legally created separate from the surrounding land by Andrew Jackson Keesling (citation needed), son of Jake and Caty, in 1892. The last two burials in the Keesling Cemetery were in 1945, 100 years after the first burial of William Jasper Keesling in 1845. In those 100 years, 5 generations of the Keesling family were buried here. At the time the cemetery was started in 1845, the nearby Mechanicsburg Cemetery was already in place.

There are about 130 people buried at the Keesling Cemetery, but there was room for about 200 people. We still have some people that are documented as being buried in the Keesling Cemetery that we have not found stones for. And based on old maps, we have some stones missing.

The people buried in the Keesling Cemetery are described:
. The religious affiliation is primarily German Baptist and secondarily Methodist.
. There are 5 soldiers buried in the cemetery; 3 Union Civil War, 1 Confederate Civil War, and 1 World War I.
. There are members of Masons, as denoted on the stones of George Washington Keesling and his brother Andrew Jackson Keesling, and members of Eastern Star.
. Everyone in the cemetery is related to Jake and Caty (if in-laws are included) with the exception of 4 members of the Corbin family and per oral history, 5 American Indians.

The Keesling Cemetery is located 1 mile southwest of Mechanicsburg in Fall Creek Township, Henry County, Indiana just north of the intersection of 975W and 400N; The legal description is Section 1 Township 18N Range 8 East (24-18N-8E). It is a half-acre in size and square shaped. It has an 1800's farm fence, which on some sides is nearly gone. The cemetery is surrounded by trees and bushes on all sides, with the entrance at the southeast corner. Beyond the trees and bushes is farmland on three sides; north, west, and south. The land to the east slopes and is low. The cemetery is accessed via a legal easement just a few feet east of the intersection of 975W and 400N, through the driveway of a farm. It is considered landlocked because it is not directly accessible from a public road.