Read time: 5 min.

Many cemeteries are impossible to miss, announcing themselves with grand arches and ornate gates. Those landmarks are great, but the pioneer burial grounds I like to visit tend to slip silently into the landscape. Take the Raysville Friends Cemetery, for example: the place stands just three hundred feet north of the old National Road, but I’d never have known it existed if it hadn’t been for some relatives who rest there. 

Tiny Raysville sits just across the Big Blue River from its larger neighbor, Knightstown. Both communities grew up along the National Road, one of America’s first highways. The road made its way through the Henry County countryside around 1827¹. Five years later, Raysville took root beside it. Quaker settlers followed and established a cemetery half a mile east of town in 1843². A church came the following year, and a two-story brick school was soon built next door³. 

Today, newer -but still old- versions of the Raysville Friends Church and schoolhouse cluster around Church and Meridian Streets in town. Only the cemetery remains at the original site, and it’s kind of hard to find. Tucked away and practically invisible on Google Maps, it’s easy to miss unless you know exactly where to look. 

A plain white fence marks the spot, but blink and you’ll miss it. To get there, turn north off the old National Road onto what looks like a driveway. It is a driveway, but part of it branches off to a place you can park. From there, it’s a short walk through the grass towards the cemetery. 

Raysville Friends Cemetery unfolds from behind the fence. The oldest burial I’m aware of belongs to Rebecca Macy, who was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, in 1886. She died at sixty-seven in her home state, but was buried here. I’m sorry to say that her headstone has fallen and faded into the ground⁴. 

My connection to the Raysville cemetery starts with William Edwards. Born in North Carolina in 1802, he died in Henry County at the age of fifty-two. His modest limestone marker may be simple, but it anchors a family line I can trace all the way to the present. Just a few feet to the south rests William’s wife, Elizabeth, who lived for another twenty-seven years after her husband passed. Her stone, weathered but standing, marks an early chapter of a story that’s still unfolding.

Elizabeth Newman Edwards outlived her husband, but she also endured the heartbreak of losing three daughters: Anna Hill, Ruth Emily Rayl, and Mary Jane Edwards. My attention was drawn to Mary Jane’s grave. Time has worn it down so the inscription is faint, but I could just make out the date: 1870. She was only thirty-eight.

William and Elizabeth were my great-great-great-great grandparents, but Mary Jane Edwards was my great-great-great-aunt. After the Civil War, she and her sister, Lizzie, went south to teach freedmen. Mary Jane kept a diary that chronicled the challenges of those early Reconstruction years. After she died, Lizzie held onto her journal and eventually gave it to her granddaughter, Hazel Holloway Hoffman. Hazel gave it to her niece Marilyn Swander, who handed it to my mom. Now, somehow, it’s part of my story. 

Yesterday, Mom and I drove to Raysville Friends Cemetery to mark the graves of William, Elizabeth, and Mary Jane with some vibrant decorations to commemorate Memorial Day. I wandered around the old graveyard and remembered that what appeared to be the grounds of a single cemetery was actually home to two; Raysville Friends and Raysville Christian. The Friends Cemetery is home to about 258 interments, while about 176 souls call Raysville Christian Cemetery home. A fence first divided them, but signs point out their boundaries today. 

After we finished up at Raysville Friends Cemetery, Mom and I made our way to Circle Grove in Spiceland, where a few more relatives rest. Mom brought decorations for Lizzie Edwards Holloway and Hazel Holloway Hoffman, but I wandered over to a nearby monument that caught my eye. Naomi and Joseph Newby’s “white bronze” marker took a shape I hadn’t seen before. 

Every time I visit an old burial ground like Raysville Friends or Circle Grove, I’m reminded that history isn’t confined to books or museums. Instead, it’s scattered across the landscape, tucked behind fences, nestled in grass, and etched into limestone. Raysville Friends Cemetery might not announce itself with grandeur, but its silence still speaks volumes. For me, walking among the graves of William, Elizabeth, Mary Jane, and others is more than just a nod to my ancestry. it’s a way of grounding myself in a long, unbroken thread of family and place.

Sources Cited
1 History of Henry County, Indiana (1884). The Inter-State Publishing Co. [Chicago]. Book. 
2 Hazzard, G. (1906). Hazzard’s History of Henry County Indiana, Volume II. 3 George  Hazzard [New Castle]. Book.
3 Condemn School Building (1921, March 11). The Knightstown Banner. p. 1.
4 Rebecca Barnard Macy (n.d.). Find A Grave. Web. Retriebed May 24, 2025.