I took the following sentence from the body of the text in the email at the
bottom of this email.
"A listing of the reading of the stones follows." Missing was the reading.
Is there one?
I would be very interested in seeing and names that were gathered from this
cemetery.
I believe that this cemetery holds much history of the German Protestants in
the Harris Settlement(Santa Fee-Santa Claus) area.
I took the following paragraph from one of the two manuscripts that I have
that were written by Lester Bockstahler.
The Rev. F. Albert Hoff of the Santa Claus Methodist Church (Campground)
wrote in German long hand the following,
"The history of the organization of this Salem Congregation of the Episcopal
Methodist Church is, at the same time, the story of the immigration of
Germans into this Settlement, at the time known as Harris Settlement. It
came about as follows.
On 20th May 1847, Johann Diedrich Henning, with his family, came to this
vicinity and bought a parcel of land. In 1840, during the ministry of Pastor
Peter Schmucker, J Diedrich Henning had joined the Methodist Church in
Cincinnati. So he was the first German Methodist resident in the area. He
found a German protestant family with the name H. Decker which had lived
here for a number of years. For several years these two families were the
only Protestants in the Settlement who spoke German."
For many years J D Henning and Johann Heinrich Decker were neighbors whose
property adjoined each other. Johann HE. Decker was my GAG-grandfather and
as most of his later neighbors was born in Germany. I believe he was a
member of the St. Pauls EVG church that was a log cabin where Santa Claus
village in now located. After his death his children joined the Santa Claus
Methodist Church.
The reason for writing this long email is to say that a large part of the
history of Harris Settlement-Santa Fee- Santa Claus area is missing. I have
a very well documented history of the Santa Claus Methodist
Church(Campground) Church but not a word have I seen about St. Paul's church
or the cemetery where the church members were buried. I wish that I knew who
the members were, who is buried at the Santa Fee Cemetery and where are the
records of that church.
Thank you in advance for any help that you may offer.
Jim Decker
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Huppert" <cbh(a)iquest.net>
To: <inspence(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 7:07 AM
Subject: [INSPENCE] Santa Fe Cemetery at Santa Claus
In the Spencer County Historical Society's Cemetery Inscriptions
book, Vol III it is said on page 48:
SANTA FE CEMETERY -- This cemetery is also known as the Hauser
Cemetery and the St. Paul Cemetery. It is located on the east side
of Hwy 245 just south of the old entrance to Santa Claus Land. The
drive is very narrow and nearly hidden, with the cemetery on the
left. It is mainly a German cemetery which has a very interesting
arrangement on the hill, that being a family with large stone facing
angled and the individual graves out from it all enclosed with
concrete squares. There are several of these squares with father,
mother, or a single name marked on them in this cemetery. The
cemetery is well kept and has flags on the graves. Read in December
1985 by Sharon, Norman and Amy Patmore.
A listing of the reading of the stones follows.
Of course, I think everyone knows that the name of the town of Santa
Claus used to be Santa Fe. See Baker's book From Needmore to
Prosperity about Hoosier place names.
Chuck Huppert
Indianapolis
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