Riverside Baptist Cemetery
 
Section 20 - 444th Avenue - Grant Township - McCook County - South Dakota

A new church was dedicated on November 26, 1926 which was used for many years until it was closed, the exact date not being recorded.  The congregation remained active and joined with 2 other churches in Canistota, the First Methodist and the First Presbyterian in the 1970's to form a new group, the United Church of Canistota and erected a new and still existing church structure in Canistota.

The photo just above shows the First Methodist and First Presbyterian churches which joined with Riverside Methodist and gives the year they were built.   Special thanks to Lavelle DeKramer for the wonderful sketches of the four churches which appear here.

Riverside Methodist  Cemetery  -  Grant  Township  -  McCook  County  -  South  Dakota

An aerial view of Riverside Cemetery. 

The land where the Riverside Cemetery is located was homesteaded as a tree claim by Benjamin Roelf Weiland in 1878.  He donated 1 acre of his land for the cemetery deeded June 2, 1892.  The cemetery was enlarged in 1959 when Lewis W and Elizabeth E Tarrell donated another 1/2 acre.  Benjamin Wieland died in 1929, and his wife Mary Ann (Silence) Wieland died in 1919, and are both buried in Riverside on the land he homesteaded 51 years before.

The earliest burial was in 1895 and the oldest person buried to this date was age 96.  The cemetery continues to be used by local families as it serves the surrounding community.   The two unknown graves located in the far northeast corner of the cemetery were dug one night by what was assumed to possibly be gypsies who were passing through the area at that time.  At this time those buried are known only to God.