Duck Lake Cemetery

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Scenic Drive North of Duck Lake Chanel

Whitehall, MI 49461

Also known as Mears Cemetery or Fruitland Twp. Cemetery West

in Fruitland Township, Muskegon County 
Sec. 13, T11N, R18N

Note:  There is a marker at the bottom of stone steps leading up to the area.

History

On a wooded ledge just north of the Duck Lake Channel, there is a little known cemetery that dates back to the eighteen hundreds.  It is unkempt and the graves are without any identification, but some of the earliest settlers are buried there.

Unsubstantiated rumor has it that some of the men from the early duck Lake sawmill are interred there and there is another story about a body that washed up on the beach which was found by the J.R. Austin family and was buried there.  Because some of the present residents of the Duck Lake area have ancestors in this cemetery, we can be fairly sure of a few names and dates; a great grandmother to the O’Connell’s, Mrs. Miller Merriman, was laid to rest in the late 1800’s; J.R. Austin, grandfather of the O’Connell’s and original proprietor of the “Pines” resort was buried there in 1905; Austin’s two infant children are buried there as are his two grandchildren, Jenny and Johnny Olson.  A handy man for the Austin’s, Sam Campbell, died in 1933 and requested burial in the Duck Lake Cemetery. Elmira Carey Stubbed, who was great-grandmother to the Johnsons on Jay Road, was buried in 1902.  It was 1907 when Johnny Saunter, infant son of Joe Saunter, died and was also buried there.

The last known burial at this lonely little cemetery in the woods was in 1937.  Ed Wilson of Sylvan Beach who owned a store and dance hall across from Lakeside Inn died without any known relatives and so came to rest on an obscure plot of ground know as duck Lake Cemetery.

(Courtesy of “A Bicentennial History of Fruitland Township”)

For photos see www.findagrave.com.