A "burying ground" established near this site in 1821 is believed to have been the first cemetery in what is now Indianapolis. It has been historically referred to as the "plague cemetery" because the first interments were people who died that year from a febrile epidemic (possibly malaria) that afflicted many residents of the area. The wife of John Maxwell, the brother of David Maxwell, M.D., one of the founding members and chairman of the trustees of Indiana University, was among those buried here. Dr. David Maxwell was the grandfather of Dr. Allison Maxwell, the first dean of the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Following construction of the medical school building, now Emerson Hall, in 1918, there were plans to alter the cemetery site. In response to concerns expressed by state historians, the dean of the School of Medicine, Charles Emerson, asked Dr. Thurman B. Rice of the Pathology Department to monitor the location while the landscape was lowered several feet. There was no evidence of any graves being disturbed. The site was marked for many years by a plain boulder.
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