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Mount Prospect Cemetery
Hickory, Washington County, Pennsylvania
Lat: 40° 17' 40"N, Lon: 80° 19' 42'W
Mount Pleasant Township
Mount Prospect Cemetery Association
PO Box 397 Hickory, PA 15340-0397
Phone: 724-356-4428
Contributed by Gary L Caldwell, Dec 16, 2009, last edited Dec 24, 2009 [caldwell.gary@gmail.com]. Total records = 2,930.
To reach this cemetery from Hickory drive west on Main Street/Hwy 50 for 1.13 miles. The cemetery will be on the south side of the highway just east of the church.
The graveyard, attached to the property of the former Mount Prospect Presbyterian Church (now the Hickory United Presbyterian Church) in Mount Pleasant Twp, came into use soon after the organization of this church on April 20, 1825. To provide a location for the new church building, a tract of land of three acres, twelve perches was secured from a corner of a farm then belonging to Robert Lyle and now the property of Robert Tobey. This tract included one acre of ground to be used as the graveyard for the church property. In those early days, it was almost an invariable custom for families to bury their departed loved ones in the graveyard at or near the church to which the family belonged, or adhered. And so it was at Mount Prospect: The names of persons interred in this old yard are those whose families were among the early members of this historic church.
When the Mount Prospect Church was organized, it was composed largely of families who had been attending one of the following Presbyterian churches: Cross Creek Church to the west, Upper Buffalo to the south, Miller Run to the east, or Raccoon, at Candor to the north. Each of these churches is located about six miles from the spot where the Mount Prospect Church is located. At each of these churches a graveyard is maintained and for some of the families represented in the Mount Prospect Graveyard, earlier burials were made at one of these older churches. Thus, the early McGugin burials were believed to have been made at Upper Buffalo Graveyard, but most of this family's burials, since the organization of Mount Prospect Church, have been made here. Likewise, early Simpson graves can be found in the Miller Run Graveyard, and many of the earlier members of the Campbell families were buried at Cross Creek village.
We do not know the earliest dates of the first burials in the Mount Prospect Graveyard, since the very earliest may not have been marked, but the earliest now legibly marked grave appears to be that of Samuel J. Stewart who died on Oct 21, 1830. The last burial in the old graveyard was that of Mrs. Jane Florence (Jackson) Donaldson, who died on Nov 26, 1956. Her body was laid beside that of her long-departed husband, Dr. W. Brady Donaldson, who had died in 1899.
When the Mount Prospect Cemetery Association was organized, it was given a sum of money by the trustees of Mount Prospect Church and was charged with the maintenance of the graveyard with title of the approximately one acre of ground remaining in the name of the Mount Prospect congregation.
I have transcribed on Dec 12, 2009, using current sexton files as well as old records found in a book by A.D. White and data collected by the DAR found in the genealogy section of the Washington PA library.
- Gary L. Caldwell
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