Locust Grove Cemetery
Belleville, Pennsylvania
This cemetery is located on Wills Rd., off Pennsylvania Highway 655, near Belleville, in Mifflin county. There are many Amish Mennonite people buried there, including my 3g-grandparents, Christian and Barbara (Yoder) Plank, who lived in the Belleville area for the last several decades of their lives. They stayed behind when three of their six living children moved to Logan county, Ohio, in 1845. These photographs of their graves were sent to us by cousin Peggy Wennerlind, who says they were taken by Betty Hartzler of Belleville...
Locust Grove cemetery is located in the midst of the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside.
We can see a barn and farmhouse in the distance.
This is the area of the cemetery where Christian and Barbara are buried.
Their graves are in the foreground. We'll zoom in to see if we can read their stones:
Christian's name is still legible. We can barely make out his date of death – May 4, 1851.
We can read Barbara's birth and death dates – June 20, 1766 and April 13, 1850.
Near Christian and Barbara are buried their son Isaac Plank1 (2 Oct 1799-5 Nov 1879)...
... and Isaac's wife, whose maiden name was also Barbara Yoder2 (14 Nov 1804-26 Jul 1889)
Locust Grove's Find A Grave site includes photos of these graves and of others which may be of interest.
1 Isaac's obituary from
Herald of Truth, December 1879, pp. 237-238:
Nov. 5th, near Belleville, Mifflin Co., Pa., Bro. ISAAC PLANK, aged 80 years,
1 month and 12 days. He leaves 10 children to mourn their loss. He was a true
and faithful member of the Amish Church for many years. A large number of
people met on the funeral occasion to show their respect for the aged
brother. Funeral conducted by John and Samuel Yoder.
2 Barbara's obituary from the Mennotite Archives & Obituaries Data Base:
On the 26th of July, near Belleville, Mifflin county, Pa., Barbara Plank, aged 84 years, 9 months and 12 days. She was a faithful member of the Amish Mennonite church since her youth. and leaves behind her a family of ten children, forty-seven grand children, and thirty-six great-grandchildren. The funeral services, conducted by Bish. Michael Yoder, assisted by John S. Yoder were impressive and very largely attended.
This page was last updated 21 Aug 2011.