March 6, 2022
Pages 2223-2225
Whole Number 111
SOME CEMETERY RECORDS FROM MUSCATINE, IOWA
(Editor's Note: The following cemetery records were copied for us by S.F.A. member Lois Ritter of R.R. 3, Box 492, Muscatine, Iowa (52761). As will be noted following these records, they add information regarding two branches of the Sparks family about which material has been published in earlier issues of the Quarterly. We would urge other Association members to copy Sparks records for us whenever they come across them. Through the years, we have been able to solve many genealogical mysteries through records that individuals have taken time to copy for us even though they were of no direct value to the person who copied them. We are most grateful to Mrs. Ritter for the following.)
Burials in Greenwood Cemetery
as Taken from the Cemetery Record Book
Amanda L. Sparks age 27 died 1-15-1872
Emma L. Sparks born 1853 died 1919
Green Sparks Age 72 y. 10 mo. 29 ds. Died 9-11-1881. Born October 13, 1808
Susan Hunt Sparks Age 83 yr. 10 mo. 7 days. Died 8-13-1901. Born October 6, 1817. Wife of Green Sparks.
Wm. Pinckney Age 30 Died 6-9-1872. Son of Green and S. H. Sparks, buried at Richmond, Ind.
BURIALS IN FAIRPORT CEMETERY
as Copied from the Grave Markers
Sarah H. wife of John Sparks died May 23, 1859 Aged 33 yr. 11mo. 2 days.
Mary J. Dau. of J. & S. Sparks died September 20, 1854 Aged 6 yr. 2mo. 8 da.Eutellah Dau. of John & Mary Sparks died February 10, 1860 Aged 8 yr. 6 mo. 3 da.
John Sparks born October 17, 1821 died September 25, 1896.
(In same plot)Hester Rose Penton 1820-1885
Emma F. dau. of E. & S. Sparks died May 10, 1850.
George son of E. & S. Sparks died April 12; 1850 aged 2 yrs. 2 da.
(Editor's Note, continued: In the June 1973 issue of the Quarterly, Whole No. 82, we published an article entitled "Elijah Sparks (born ca. 1770, died 1815) of Early Indiana." There (page 1573) we noted that the youngest of the sons of Elijah and Elizabeth (Weaver) Sparks was named Green Sparks, and we speculated that he was born ca. 1808. We did not know the date of his death nor the place where he died. The cemetery record that Mrs. Ritter copied for us proves that Green Sparks died in or near Muscatine, Iowa, on September 11, 1881, at the age of 72 years, 10 months, and 29 days. He was thus born October 13, 1808. Susan (Hunt) Sparks, wife of Green Sparks, died, according to the Greenwood Cemetery record, on August 13, 1901, at the age of 83 years, 10 months, and 7 days. Thus, she was born October 6, 1817.
Amanda L. Sparks, daughter of Green and Susan (Hunt) Sparks, apparently died unmarried on January 15, 1872, at the age of 27 (thus born in 1845 as we speculated on page 1574). Likewise, their daughter Emma L. Sparks, born in 1853, appears to have died unmarried in 1919 at the age of 66. William Pickney Sparks, whose service in the Civil War was recorded on page 1573 of the Quarterly, died following the war, in 1872, at the age of 30; he was buried in Richmond, Indiana, but a stone was apparently placed in the Greenwood Cemetery to his memory. He had no children. We have no knowledge of the other two children of Green and Susan (Hunt) Sparks: Mary A. Sparks, born ca. 1836, and Frances Sparks, born ca. 1829. We know only that they were living in Muscatine, Iowa, with their parents when the 1870 census was taken.
In the Quarterly for June 1975 (Whole No. 90) pp. 1734 -35, we published an abstract of the Civil War pension application filed in 1883 by 88. John Sparks of Muscatine County, Iowa, based on the service of his son, 88.1 Elery E. Sparks, who had died on July 27, 1864, of wounds suffered in the Battle of Atlanta. We had no knowledge of John Sparks's death, although we knew from census records that he had been born in Kentucky ca. 1822. From the cemetery records copied by Mrs. Ritter, we now know that he died near Muscatine, Iowa, on September 25, 1896, and that he had been born October 17, 1821. His first wife, Sarah (Anderson) Sparks, died on May 23, 1859, aged 33 years, 11 months, and 2 days (thus born June 21, 1826).
John Sparks married as his second wife, Mary Penton. Her mother, who lived with the John Sparks family (and identified as "wife's mother" on the 1880 census) was named Hester Rose Penton and, according to the inscription on her stone copied by Mrs. Ritter, she was born in 1820 and died in 1885. We may assume that Mary's maiden named was also Penton unless her mother had married again. Mrs. Ritter also copied for us the record of the John Sparks family appearing on the 1880 census of Muscatine County, Iowa. The age of John Sparks was given as 58, born in Kentucky and by trade a potter. Both of his parents had been born in North Carolina. His second wife, Mary Sparks, was listed as 39 years old and born in Delaware; her father was also born in Delaware but her mother had been born in Maryland. Living with John and Mary Sparks in 1880 was a son of John and his first wife whose name was given, according to Mrs. Ritter, as Ceston Sparks, age 25, whose occupation was "turner in Pottery" - - when he applied for a pension in 1883 John Sparks gave this son's name as Chester Sparks, born November 4, 1854. Three children by Mary, second wife of John Sparks, were listed on the 1880 census: Wilmetta C. Sparks, age 16; Adella A. Sparks, age 14; and George A. Sparks, age 12. As noted earlier, John Sparks's mother-in-law, Hester C. Penton, age 59, was living in the household in 1880; she had been born in Maryland, her father had been born in Pennsylvania and her mother in Delaware.)