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Steadman Cemetery
Emmet Township, Union County, South Dakota

Contributed by Brian Hass, Jul 14, 2001 [brian_m_hass@hotmail.com]. Total records = 7.

This small family cemetery is located seven miles south of Beresford, SD and one mile from old Highway 77 (Union County's 471st Avenue). Although the cemetery has no access road, it is visible from Interstate 29, which curves slightly to by-pass the cemetery. The cemetery is not maintained; but, it is a dedicated cemetery.

Seven people, including two babies, were buried at the cemetery. The individual graves were left unmarked. But, a common grave marker bearing the Steadman name was erected at the site. The people buried at the cemetery were from the Blatchford, Hemstock, and Steadman families.

The cemetery was started on the Anthony Steadman homestead, located on the northwest quarter of section 18 of Emmet Township in Union County. The first burial was that of George Steadman's son, William, in 1870. William was the father of three small children at the time of his death.

Two more graves were added as a result of the harsh winter of 1872 or 1873. George Steadman's son-in-law, Alfred Hemstock, was reported to have gone out into the cold to bring in the cattle. When he didn't return, his wife, Sarah Jane, was reported to have left their two small daughters alone in the house to go out and look for him. Both parents were frozen to death about a hundred feet apart; but, their two children were found alive a couple days later. The older girl, age 3, had kept her baby sister warm in bed. The parents were buried at the Steadman Cemetery in coffins built from floor boards taken from the upstairs of Samuel Steadman's new house. Later, the two daughters were raised by the family.

In 1898, Geneva Steadman, was buried beside her husband, George Steadman. Her burial was the last at the Steadman Cemetery.

It is worth noting that all of the Union County records pre-dating 1905 are lost as a result of a fire. And, no copies of issues of the two Beresford newspapers from before 1897 are known to have survived. As a result, records on the people buried at the Steadman Cemetery are relatively few in number.

The above information was gathered from three sources:

1) The 1989 article, "Steadman Cemetery," written by members of the 20th Century Club of Beresford, SD. This was one of the club's articles on the three small local family cemeteries, written in honor of the South Dakota state centennial.

2) The article, "John and Ellen Steadman," pages 395-6 of the Beresford Centennial Book, Beresford:_100_Years. The book was published by the "Beresford Republic" and the "Lennox Independent" in 1983. The author of the Steadman family article is unknown.

3) The Bureau of Land Management's GLO records.

The following listing was compiled from information contained within the first two sources.

??, Baby, d. before 1898, no headstone, surname might be Blatchford?
Hemstock, Alfred, d. 1873, no headstone, husband of Sarah Jane Hemstock
Hemstock, Sarah Jane (Steadman), d. 1873, no headstone, daughter of George Steadman
Steadman, Elmer, no headstone, son of George Steadman, preceded mother in death
Steadman, Geneva Wilton, d. 1898, age 98 yrs, no headstone, wife of George Steadman
Steadman, George, no headstone, husband of Geneva, preceded wife in death
Steadman, William, d. 1870, age 24 yrs, no headstone, son of George Steadman