Est. 1917 · Rural Missouri Family Cemetery
Wheeler Cemetery sits roughly five miles down a county road off Highway DD in Maries County, Missouri, near the community of Dixon. The cemetery is also referenced in regional genealogy resources as Byrd Cemetery or Rumfelt Cemetery and appears to be a family burial ground rather than a community cemetery.
The earliest marked burial recorded for the cemetery is that of Ella A. Wheeler, who died on May 17, 1917. A 2009 visit by regional cemetery documenters found the cemetery in poor condition with few stones remaining. The cemetery is on private land per Pulaski and Maries County cemetery indices.
The Shadowlands narrative includes a claim that the cemetery contains burials of teens and young adults who died by beheading, drowning, car accidents, and murder, alongside a substantial number of infant and child burials. The graphic specifics, particularly the beheading claim, are not corroborated in any of the genealogical sources reviewed for this file and do not appear in the limited inscription records that survive. Pending newspaper or court-record confirmation, those specific cause-of-death claims should be treated as Shadowlands embellishment rather than documented history.
The Dave Hallemann cemetery collection, hosted by the Jefferson County Missouri History project, includes a detailed write-up of Wheeler Cemetery tracing the family burial ground to a March 4, 1905 land transaction by Charles S. Wheeler. Charles died on January 2, 1930 and was buried alongside his wife Ella. The cemetery is also recorded under the alternate names Byrd Cemetery and Rumfelt Cemetery in regional registers. By 2009 the site was reported in poor condition with few standing stones, and the parcel remains on private land.
Sources
- https://www.kks-fam.net/showmap.php?cemeteryID=190
- https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/32232/wheeler-cemetery
- http://genealogytrails.com/mo/pulaski/cemeteries.htm
- https://jeffcomohistory.org/DavesCemArticles/WheelerCemetery.pdf
Phantom soundsDoors opening/closingOrbsEVP
Anonymous community-submitted accounts collected in the Shadowlands Haunted Places Index describe several reported phenomena at Wheeler Cemetery. The most detailed claim is an internal wind that moves the cemetery's central flag while no wind moves vegetation outside the perimeter; the front gate is said to open and close on its own, with scratching sounds reported from the ground and colored orbs photographed near the markers. EVP recordings are attributed to the site but no specific recordings or named investigator accounts are produced.
In the absence of named witnesses, published investigation, or news coverage, these reports remain anonymous community lore. The cemetery's small size and isolated rural location lend themselves to atmospheric storytelling but do not, in the materials reviewed, anchor to verified incidents.