The mysteries at South Jordan

There may come a time when someone's great-grandma discovers, among stuff left behind in an upstairs closet, a dusty old day book some unknown great-grandma of hers left behind, a broken thing full of scribbled-in remnants of a story that today, sadly enough, no one knows, the story behind South Jordan cemetery, a tiny little graveyard not all that far from Moorhead, Iowa, that for years people have claimed is the final resting place for a number of residents who happen to have been African-Americans. That's right--a Black cemetery.

Today, it's hard to know who or how many good folks were laid to rest here. Most of graves are unmarked, some, locals say, victims of time and/or the brutal hijinks old forgotten things come victim to most anywhere in rural America. For a couple of generations, the place has been a haven for hooligans and six-packs, even though the place, sweetly kept, sits beneath a massive oak whose long arms appear to protect what's left of what's still there. 

You'll find it just off a snaky gravel road that doesn't offer much traffic. It's there all right, but you'll have to hunt.

Theories of its origins abound. For years, some locals liked to believe the people of color who once lived here were runaway slaves. Local historians have laid that story to rest, however, given the fact that one of the octogenarians remembers her grandfather, a doctor, who claimed his Black patients were a freed people invited to the Loess Hills to work land owned by a man named Adam Miers.

Adam Miers, of some standing, signed up for military sometime during the Civil War and became a part of a local militia disciplined to quell what they called "Indian problems." Did he fight? No one knows. What we know is that his name appears on the ledger. The Black folks from rural Moorhead were his workers. At least, those facts no one disputes.

But no one knows for sure where Adam Miers came from to settle in the Hills. Could it be he'd moved north and west and took his slaves along to work what would become a big spread? Once upon a time old-timers remembered seeing Black workers in adjacent fields, but were they slaves?--it's doubtful. Slavery was illegal already in 1848, the year of statehood, and, as Marilyn Robinson's Gilead makes clear, Iowa abolitionists played significant roles along the Underground Railroad. 

Here's some other facts: census date claims there was one black person in the entire county in 1860, and 88 in 1880. Something happened. African-Americans most definitely were here, but left few records, save what little can be gleaned from a few weathered stones in a rustic rural cemetery. 

Who were they, and who were their kin? No one knows. Miers himself doesn't appear to be among those buried here, although at least one of his wives is--her stone is one of the few still standing and readable.

And we know too that sometime in the final years of the 19th century, an entire community of white people petitioned county law enforcement to run those Black folks the heck out of the county. No reason is given, although it's not hard to imagine the argument's heft--after all, we may not know much about them, but we know they were black.

The truth?--we don't even know how they got here, or what they did when they were here. There's so very much we don't know, and South Jordan cemetery, neat as a pin these days--you'd be proud!--isn't doing much talking. 

Stop by someday. Maybe you'll come up with something. It's a shame really--we know so very, very little. A ton of mysteries abound in South Jordan Cemetery.

What we do know we hardly dare say aloud, even though behind the eyes of every last person reading this story are minds that have already been over that ground. You don't have to be from Moorhead to think it either. What is known about those Black folks who once tried to make a life in all the beauty of the Loess Hills is this: they were Black and most everyone around wasn't. 

It's a word no one likes to use--racism, without a doubt a part of the mysteries of South Jordan Cemetery.