From the 1917 ARMCO Bulletin pages 113 – 115,  Unmarked Graves by John S Roney.  This bulletin is available at the Middletown Library Ohio room or the Middletown Historical Society, 56 South Main Street.

  “A few hundred yards northeast of the paved limits of Tytus Avenue, along the Dixie Highway, [in 2007 Route 4] an old school house is being torn down, which school was the last taught by our honored Governor, James M. Cox.  The ruins lie in the northwest corner of an ancient graveyard, where but two stones remain to mark a hundred graves.

  In the days of our great grandfathers it was customary to bury a body with the head towards the West, face up, so that, arising at the Resurrection, it would face the sunrise and the East.  But one grave conspicuously extends north and south.  In this variation lies a story. 

  A long time ago—about the year 1850—a wayfarer, whom we could call a tramp nowadays, became ill with smallpox, and after being taken in to be cared for by a resident, died.  His identity could not be established. And he was buried contrary to custom—north and south—so that his grave could be identified in case any relatives were located and wished to remove the body.

  Another grave in this little Cemetery deserves a story.  For under the great tree that you see in the last illustration lies the body of Abner Enoch, buried beside that of his wife.

  Before Abner Enoch dies he and his brother David were trustees in the old Salem Baptist church which stood about three hundred feet back from the road, before the little brick school house was built.  Now you must keep this to yourself:  It is said that records of the old church show liberal contributions of whiskey for upkeep and maintenance.  The whiskey, of course, was for resale. 

  Abner Enoch was a man of great wealth and influence at the time the church was in existence.  A short time before the War of 1812, he owned six or seven hundred acres of rich farming land near this end of the Poasttown bridge, and there, by an elaborate system of canals, he laid out a little Holland with waterways for alleys and one hundred foot streets.  He called this cherished ambition which was about to be realized, Manchester, after the great English manufacturing center of that name.  For a long time it was very doubtful whether Middletown or Manchester would be the greater city.  Enoch was a man of great ability.  He erected a large grist mill, a distillery, and succeeded in locating several other small mills and quite a community of houses in his ideal city.  He had secured, in some unknown manner, the privilege to use all of the water form the Miami river above the State Dam, which was not needed by the Miami and Erie Canal Company.  Land owners in Middletown determined that this privilege was unconstitutional.  After long and expensive lawsuits, and almost complete demoralization of Enoch’s plans, they succeeded in reaching define results in the formation of the Middletown Hydraulic Company, which under the directorship of such men as John W Erwin, Joseph Cooper, Charles Thomas and Thomas Sherlock, succeeded in inducing several papermakers, such as Wrenn & Ogelsby, to locate on the banks of their Hydraulic.  Enoch was keen to realize Middletown’s determination to be the greater of the two cities.  By judicious sales of land, he was able to realize considerable value from his holdings.  After he had almost entirely sold out, misfortune fell upon him and his little colony, the mill burning down and many of the houses of the colonist with it.  Mr. Enoch himself died a short time later and was buried in this little graveyard which gives modest shelter to the remains of so important a personage. 

  The little Baptist Church which originally possessed this lot, stood at the southeast corner of the present school yard.  After the church was torn down, a little frame school was built; and after it served its time, the brick school house which is now being torn down was erected closer to the road.  Although the church was called the Salem Church, the members, who were old school or primitive Baptists, did not believe in witchcraft.  They lived the gospel as it was preached and written.  At the time the Salem Church was at the height of its success, a discordance arose over the missionary work was an act of humanity and not a question of religion, and the new school members contending that missionary work was a religious problem.  The old school Baptists did not believe in remaining silent to those where not converted to religion, for they believed in preaching the gospel to all who were not Christians.  But they did not believe that preaching the gospel or converting the heathen would bring them salvation.  The controversy which arose at this time resulted in a split in the little church which had hitherto known no trouble, as a great many of the members coming down into Middletown and forming what is now the First Baptist Church.  Members of the old school or primitive church moved to Poasttown where they still hold services.  For a great many years they quarreled fiercely over every new improvement in thought or service.  When an organ was bought, some of the members would not attend while the organ was there, so a little house was built for it just outside the church and the organ was carried out while one part of the congregation worshipped, and then carried back into the church again when the other faction presided.

  The last burial took place in this little churchyard was in 1864.  With the abandonment of the church came the subsequent abandonment of the cemetery, and many of the remains were taken to the Middletown Cemetery, leaving a large portion of the bodies still buried there with unmarked and almost indistinguishable graves.”

George Crout wrote about Abner Enoch and you can view George Crout Chronicles at https://sites.rootsweb.com/~ohmhs/crout.htm

Since formal record keeping did not being in the Middletown Cemetery until the late 1880’s it is difficult to discern who might have been moved from the Salem Baptist Church Burial Ground.  Also the Middletown Cemetery may have many unmarked early graves when record keeping did not occur.

ENOCH Abner

1917 ARMCO Bulletin pages 113 – 115

ENOCH Mrs

1917 ARMCO Bulletin pages 113 – 115

UNKNOWN traveler

1917 ARMCO Bulletin pages 113 – 115