Some of the pioneer cemeteries I’ve visited are well-known, while others sit tucked deep in the woods or behind cornfields. Still, none hide in plain sight quite like the old Otterbein Cemetery in Chesterfield. Hundreds of people pass it every day on State Road 32! About fifty passengers a day fly over it, too, on their descent towards the Anderson Municipal Airport. Just a football field west of the flight path, the cemetery quietly endures as the world rushes by.
I first spotted Otterbein Cemetery on my way home from work. I was crawling through backed-up traffic when I caught a glimpse of some headstones rising amidst the distant trees. What was a cemetery doing so close to the airport? The image stuck in my mental file of places to check out someday until my mom and I decided to take a little detour and see what was really out there. What we found was far more than just a forgotten roadside curiosity.
Otterbein is an unusual name for an American cemetery, especially one where no Otterbeins are buried. That’s because the name came from the German Aughterbine, as in William Aughterbine, who is said to be the founder of the Society of the United Brethren1. Settlers in Union Township organized the area’s first church, a U.B. congregation, around 18402.
Brazelton Noland deeded land for a graveyard in 18433, but the property had been used as a burial ground for years prior. Noland’s mother and father, Mary and Daniel, migrated to Madison County in 1822 and built a homestead just east of the site. Mary died on the frontier in 1825 and became the first to be interred at what became Otterbein Cemetery4. Daniel passed away in 1829. Unfortunately, their headstones are no longer visible.
Along with the Nolands, many of Union Township’s earliest and most prominent pioneers were buried at Otterbein Cemetery. One was William Dilts. Born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1793, Dilts moved to Ohio with his parents in the early 1800s. By 1821, he’d come to Mill Creek near what’s now Chesterfield5. Aside from his tombstone, Dilts’ legacy continues through the landmark home he erected just east of the heart of town. Said to be the first brick tavern in Madison County6, the house is said to have been erected in 18337.
Two of William Dilts’ daughters married into families whose names still echo through Union Township history. A younger daughter became part of the Noland family, which was already well established in the area. The oldest, Rachel, was said to be the first white girl born in Union Township8! She married Bradley Makepeace, a member of Madison County’s first prominent family of businessmen9.
Amasa Makepeace settled on the east side of Mill Creek with his wife, two daughters, and seven sons around 18219. He established the first post office in Chesterfield, served as postmaster for more than a quarter century, and also acted as Union Township’s first justice of the peace10. Makepeace died in 1848 at the age of seventy, but his descendants erected an obelisk at Otterbein to honor his life many years later.
Makepeace’s sons Allen and Alfred arrived in Union Township before the rest of the family. Allen settled in the area and opened a store in the 1820s. With his father, he platted Chesterfield in 183011. Four years later, Allen built the second brick home in the township. By the time of his death in 1871, Allen Makepeace was the wealthiest man in Madison County! His tilted tombstone sits behind what’s left of a wrought-iron fence in the northwestern corner of the burial ground.
Aside from Nolands, Dilts, and Makepeaces, Otterbein Cemetery is home to a variety of other interesting markers. The Suman family was an early part of the Ottterbein United Brethren Church. A large plot near the graveyard’s eastern bounds is full of Suman obelisks. Behind the, rests a pile of fieldstones that may have once separated their plot from the rest of the interments12.
Henry Russell, a soldier in the Revolutionary War, is another notable seemingly interred at Otterbein. Said to have been at Valley Forge in 1777, Russell is listed in the DAR Index of Revolutionary Patriots. He died in Chesterfield at eighty-two years old, and his grave sits along the west side of the property. It’s marked by a plaque placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution13.
Otterbein Cemetery also hosts two of my favorite discoveries: white bronze markers. The first I found belonged to John Alfred Campbell, a native of North Yorkshire, England. Campbell passed away in Anderson at the age of fifty-three. The second honors James Mills, born in Pennsylvania in 1800. He died at sixty-two, but I’m not sure if he was actually buried at Otterbein or simply remembered there. Both markers were probably cast by the Detroit Bronze Company.
Walking around Otterbein Cemetery is like stepping into a forgotten chapter of Indiana’s frontier story. It features a simple sign, no parking lot, and no formal entrance. The cemetery doesn’t call attention to itself, but it offers a tangible link to the people who carved a life out of this corner of Madison County nearly two centuries ago. So does a grassy field to the west, which once served as a “Potter’s Field” for those who died at the Madison County Infirmary14.
Madison County’s infirmary, commonly known as the poor farm, once sat just south of Otterbein Cemetery on old Tenth Street. Like many county-run facilities of its time, the poor farm served as a last refuge for those with nowhere else to go like the elderly without family, the mentally ill, the physically disabled, and anyone else who had fallen through the cracks of society. It was part shelter, part workhouse, and part medical ward, operated with the barest of means.
Seventy former residents are believed to be buried in unmarked graves at the County Infirmary Cemetery. No headstones mark their names, and no monuments tell their stories. Fortunately, the earth remembers: when the field is freshly mowed, subtle depressions dot the landscape that betray the collapse of its cheap wooden coffins14.
Otterbein Cemetery appears in decent repair today, but that wasn’t always the case. In 1970, considerable damage was apparent at most of the markers15. By 1982, the burial ground seemed under attack16! Otterbein once featured more than 350 legible tombstones, but about a third of them exist today17. Fortunately, the Madison County Cemetery Commission undertook a revitalization project in 2006. Many of the visible markers were restored and repaired.
Otterbein Cemetery may not draw much attention from the road or the sky these days, but it still managed to catch my eye. Some of its stories belong to prominent pioneers who helped shape Madison County. Others remain unmarked, both buried in Otterbein and the grassy field once tied to the poor farm. Together, they form a patchwork history of hardship, ambition, faith, and survival that’s worth remembering.
Sources Cited
1 Harden, S. (1895). The Pioneer. William Mitchell Printing Company [Greenfield]. Book.
2 Bock, G. (1970, June 29). Many Of Pioneers Rest In Otterbein Cemetery. The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 4.
3 (See footnote 2).
4 Otterbein Cemetery (n.d.) The Madison County Cemetery Commission [Anderson]. Web. Retriebed June 25, 2025.
5 Man About Town (1956, November 21). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 4.
6 Old Burial Place Links with Centennial (1936, August 23). The Anderson Herald. p. 18.
7 Bremer, H. (2019, March 25). Historic Hidden Treasures 2.pdf. The Herald Bulletin. Web. Retrieved June 28, 2025.
8 (See footnote 5).
9 Otterbein Cemetery (n.d.). Pioneer Cemeteries and Their Stories, Madison County, Indiana. The Madison County Cemetery Commission [Anderson]. Web. Retrieved June 26, 2025.
10 (See footnote 9).
11 History (n.d.). Town of Chesterfield Indiana [Chesterfield]. Web. Retrieved June 29, 2025.
12 (See footnote 9).
13 (See footnote 9).
14 County Infirmary (n.d.). Pioneer Cemeteries and Their Stories, Madison County, Indiana. The Madison County Cemetery Commission [Anderson]. Web. Retrieved June 26, 2025.
15 Bock, G. (1970, May 6). Old Otterbeing Cemetery Visited By History Group. The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 4.
16 Kirby, R. (1982, July 16). Vandals may be chief threat to old cemetery. The Anderson Herald. p. 3.
17 (See footnote 9).
I need to make a trip with my kids out there so they can see how far we go back. Its been years since I’ve visited.
Sounds like a great idea!
The only poor farm I remember was where the airport in Chesterfield, is now. The only thing on 10th street I remember is the Girl scout campground! 10th street is a deadend street
I’ve never heard of the Girl Scout campground! Interesting.