The cemeteries of old Fairfield, Indiana are well preserved. This is because in the late 1960's the town of Fairfield was inundated by the construction of what became Brookville Lake. In order to build the lake, it was necessary to relocate the cemeteries from the valley to higher ground, east of what became "New Fairfield". This was highly controversial at the time, but it appears that the Corps of Engineers had everything moved properly to the new combined cemetery location. In the process, good records were kept. The two main cemeteries at Fairfield were Brier which was on the south side of town and Sims which was north of town. NOTE: If you locate cemetery records for Sims Cemetery prior to 1967, it will state that the cemetery was in Union County - and that is correct. However when the remains were moved to the new location, they are now in Franklin County - making this is a potential source of confusion for researchers! When the cemeteries were moved, the remains were laid out in the same order that they were originally in the original cemeteries. Information is also available about such things as what kind of burial it had been - wood, metal, vault, etc. It is interesting to note that there were many more remains moved than there were grave markers. So if you think your ancestor might have been buried in a Fairfield Cemetery - perhaps they were but no stone remained (or was ever placed) at the time of moving.

Here are some photos of Sims and Brier Cemeteries taken in April 2007. You can see that the new cemetery is beautifully laid out and maintained.

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