There are few records left of the farm and the inmates. The Auditor's office, housed at the Decatur County Courthouse, has a few pages of the minutes of the "Poor Farm" committee. And, the Decatur County Museum has one list of inmates that were at one time living at the farm.
The location of the cemetery was slightly south of the large county farm house, then east to the top of the ridge. However, the county farm house was torn down not long after it was sold. The cemetery area is fenced with an opening but no gate. It is not mowed.
An early burial policy of the County Poor Farm according to History of Decatur County by Himena Hoffman was: "When death came to an inmate, he was dressed in a three dollar robe and buried in a $10. Casket in the burial grounds on the farm, unless the family who had left him to end his days at the "Poor Farm" claimed the body and gave him burial elsewhere,"
On January 4, 1866, Dozier B. Gammon sold 160 acres to the county and the Decatur County Poor Farm began. The poor were housed in the original homestead house built my Dozier Gammon and his sons. An area was set aside for a cemetery. There are now 18 matching markers in two rows, mostly from 1900 to 1910. They were made of concrete at the county home and hand-lettered. Very few are readable today. There are probably many unmarked graves. When the county farm was sold in 1975, a large ledger containing residents information (including burials) was burned. The last known burial (unmarked) was in 1939.
County Home Cemetery is a US Cemetery based in Leon, Iowa. County Home Cemetery is located at Leon, IA 50144, USA.
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