The Shawnee Indian Cemetery sits quietly in a neighborhood near downtown Shawnee. When visiting, please be respectful of the neighbors and do not walk through their yard to get the the cemetery or block their driveway with your car.
This is a beautiful and deeply historic place, but it is still a cemetery. Please be respectful.
There are at least 27 interments here, but there may be more.
From the History of Wyandotte County Kansas and Its People (published 1911), and transcribed on the US Genweb website (
visit link) comes this biography of Shawnee Indian Chief Joseph Parks:
"CAPTAIN JOSEPH PARKS.
This, the head Shawnee Indian chief, was born in 1792, probably in Michigan. He knew little of his parents, but according to his own account he lived in the family of General Lewis Cass for some years. It was through the interest General Cass took in the boy that he obtained educational advantages not enjoyed by other youths of his tribe. General Cass used him as an interpreter when he was in the Indian service, and the office of tribal interpreter he filled for many years.
In the spring of 1833 Captain Parks was commissioned by the United States government with the removal of the Ohio, or Hog Creek band, of the Shawnees to their new home in Kansas. He performed the work in a very satisfactory manner. During the Seminole war in Florida the government recruited two or more companies of Shawnees. Of one company Parks was made captain, and after serving through the campaign with distinction, he returned to his home with all of his men, only one of which was slightly wounded.
Captain Parks was a man of culture and of general information. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and had been for a number of years. He died April 3, 1859, at the age of sixty-six years, and was buried in the Shawnee Indian cemetery near the old log church in Johnson county. A fine monument bearing Masonic emblems marks his last resting place. At the time of his death he was a member of the Westport Masonic lodge. Captain Parks once told Joab Spencer, a Methodist missionary, that there was among the Indians an order almost similar to the Masonic order, with grips, signs and password. But among the Indians the lodge selected its own members from the worthy young men of the tribe. Captain Parks had been thus selected for the order. He had no knowledge that he was to be a member until notified of his election.
Captain Parks owned a fine body of land just inside the Kansas line west of Westport, on which he erected a spacious and attractive home. He was both wealthy and hospitable, and he freely entertained those who came that way.
Among others of the Shawnees who won distinction for meritorious work in aid of civilizing and educating the tribe was Paschal Fish. He was a local preacher and his brother Charles was an interpreter. They would listen to sermons preached by the white men in the missions and translate them for those of the Indians who could not understand English. [end]
From the Kansas Travel website, a little more inforamtion about Chief Joseph Parks: (
visit link)
The Shawnee Indian Cemetery is a small cemetery at the end of a short dead end street in Shawnee, Kansas. At first glance, the Shawnee Indian Cemetery appears to be an empty lot, but on inspection, a number of memorial stones are found, mostly laying down on the ground. Although the oldest remaining headstone records a death from 1837, the land was not officially set aside as a cemetery until 1854. The last known burial is Julia Ann Daugherty, wife of Chief Charles Bluejacket, who died July 11, 1870.
Burials in the Shawnee Indian Cemetery include Native Americans and individuals that were involved with the nearby Quaker and Methodist Missions. There are more graves than markers, and there are reports that headstones continued to disappear only a few years past.
The most famous person buried in Shawnee Indian Cemetery is Captain Joseph "PA-KAH-TOH-KAH-KA-LE" Parks (1794-1859), who was a hero of the Seminole War in Florida, at one time chief of all the Shawnee Indians and a major property owner in Rosedale in Kansas City, Kansas and Westport in Kansas City, Missouri, including the land on which Kelly's Westport Inn now stands. Joseph Parks was a member of the Methodist Church, a Mason, and various sources say that he was white, indian, or mixed.
In 1831, Joseph Parks was appointed as interpreter for the Shawnee Chiefs' delegation to the United States government, and he later assisted in moving the Shawnees from Ohio to the Shawnee reservation in Kansas. He then returned to Washington for several years as an agent of his tribe.
The location of the Shawnee Indian Cemetery has been a place of worship, a council house where voting was done in the very infancy of the State of Kansas, a military headquarters when Shawnee was under siege and burned twice, and a burial place. In 1840 the community's first Methodist Church was built on the ground next to the cemetery.
To visit the Shawnee Indian Cemetery take Nieman Road to 59th Terrace, turn east and drive about 100 yards to the end of the street." [end]