Ottawa Baptist Mission Site and Burial Ground

This cemetery includes the graves of Ottawa leaders such as chiefs Notino and Compchau and John T. "Tauy' Jones along with missionaries like Reverend Jotham Meeker. The cemetery is at the site of Reverend Jotham Meeker’s second mission in Franklin County, which included a meeting house that was moved from his first mission site on the river in 1844 along with a school, farm buildings, and the first print shop in what became Kansas. The Kansas Anthropological Association excavated the site in 1988, identifying the locations of the house, print shop and church.

The open space in the center of the gravestones is the site of the log church. Meeker is buried north of the church site, at his specific request, and John Tecumseh “Tauy” Jones to the south. Two Ottawa chiefs, Notino and Compchau, are buried in graves marked by modern stones. Meeker’s press was the first one in Kansas Territory, and was used to produce Indian language hymnals, prayer books and laws for the Shawnees and the Ottawas, using a syllabary of his own invention. This method of transcribing Indian languages which had no written form, used English letters for native syllables. After Meeker’s death in 1855, the mission fell into disrepair.

Richards, Catherine Jane. Barker, Deborah. Northeast Franklin County, Franklin County Kansas Historical Portal. Accessed July 22nd 2020. http://www.franklincokshistory.org/places-2/tours/northeast-franklin-county/.

Gravestones of Rev. Jotham Meeker and Eleanor Meeker, Kansas State Historical Society. Invalid date. Accessed February 5th, 2024. https://www.kshs.org/km/items/view/215402.

Ottawa Indian Mission Burying Ground, Find A Grave. Accessed February 5th, 2024. https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/92770/ottawa-indian-mission-burying-ground.