Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA small, isolated rural cemetery between Marcellus and Decatur where the murdered Morris family of 1879 is buried, and where a headstone is said to glow each year on the anniversary of the killings.
36th Street (between 92nd & 96th Avenues), near Swift Lake, Decatur, MI 49045
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free rural public cemetery down a dirt road.
Access
Limited Access
Dirt-road access beside a swamp; uneven grass and gravel ground
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1879 · Burial site of the Morris family (murdered 1879) · Van Buren County rural cemetery · Linked to the vanished village of Charleston, Michigan
Anderson Cemetery sits down a dirt road beside a swamp on 36th Street, between 92nd and 96th Avenues on the west side of Swift Lake, in Decatur Township, Van Buren County. Records place it roughly halfway between the communities of Marcellus (in Cass County) and Decatur, and Find a Grave catalogs several hundred memorials there. It is an ordinary small rural cemetery in a flat agricultural landscape, distinguished chiefly by the story attached to one family plot.
On September 28, 1879, Charles and Esther Morris were shot dead at their farmhouse near the now-vanished village of Charleston, on the county line between Van Buren and Cass counties. By the accounts that survive — recounted by regional outlets, a dedicated local research project, and a Wikipedia article on the case — Charles was likely shot near the back porch after rising from bed, and Esther was shot multiple times in the bedroom and closet when she went to investigate. Their employee Jennie Bull was also in the house that night and was not harmed; no children were present or killed. The intruder fled on one of the family's horses, which was later recovered in South Bend, Indiana. The Pinkerton Detective Agency investigated but the murders remain unsolved.
A persistent local question is why the Morris family was buried at Anderson Cemetery, roughly five miles away, rather than at the Charleston cemetery directly across from their home. No documented explanation has surfaced, and the unusual burial choice has become part of the location's lore. A South Bend Tribune feature and Michigan history outlets have revisited the case, and a local blog has worked to document the family's graves.
Beyond the Morris story, the cemetery's history is that of countless small mid-Michigan rural burial grounds — established to serve scattered farming families, maintained by the township, and largely forgotten except by genealogists and the occasional folklore seeker.
Sources
The folklore at Anderson Cemetery centers entirely on the Morris family grave. According to accounts collected by regional outlets such as 99.1 WFMK and Kalamazoo-area media, visitors who come to the cemetery on the late-September anniversary of the murders report that the family headstone — described as the only pillar-style marker, standing beneath the cemetery's only evergreen trees near the center — glows in the dark.
Some tellings go further, claiming that the apparitions of Charles and Esther Morris can be seen standing beside their stone on that night. The story is reinforced by the genuinely unsettling historical facts beneath it: a married couple shot to death in their home in 1879, their murders never solved, and an unexplained burial five miles from where they lived.
These accounts are presented as local ghost tradition rather than verified fact, and the underlying crime is treated as a real tragedy rather than a thrill. The historical record confirms the Morris murders and the family's burial here; the glowing headstone and graveside apparitions belong to the folklore that has grown around that documented loss.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Walk the small rural cemetery on 36th Street between Marcellus and Decatur, near Swift Lake, where the Morris family murdered in 1879 is buried. Local tradition holds that the family headstone glows on the late-September anniversary of the killings.
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