The Salem Baptist Church stood at the southeast corner of the lot. The last burial that took place in this churchyard was in 1864. With the abandonment of the church came the subsequent abandonment of the cemetery, and many of the remains were taken to the Middletown Cemetery, leaving a large portion of the bodies still buried there with unmarked and almost indistinguishable graves.

Since formal record keeping did not begin in the Middletown Cemetery until the late 1880's it is difficult to discern who might have been moved from the Salem Baptist Church Burial Ground. Also the Middletown Cemetery may have many unmarked early graves when record keeping did not occur.

When the Raymond Bag Factory was built at this site, the remains of that cemetery were discovered and mention made of the fact in the Middletown Journal.

Middletown-News Journal---Feb 5, 1931
"Skeletons and Markers Unearthed by Workmen Revive
Early History"



Out of the dim past through the finding of a few disconnected bones, has been revived the story of the intrepid pioneers whose solid tread has left its lasting imprint in the western part of this country.

Just whose graves were disturbed when workmen unearthed eight skeletons on Enoch Drive to lay a water main probably never will be known. But one tombstone remained to identify in any way or to set the date when death came. On this marker are the dates 1826 and 1846 and the names are believed to be Thomas and Sarah Wade or Ware. Here, too, time had taken its toll to erase the trace of identity.

Manchester Heights is now believed to have been one of the earliest of white settlements in the state. It is known that Abner Enoch migrated from the east and settled near here at about 1770, the third earliest colony in the state superceded only by those at Marietta and Zanesville.

He named the village Manchester but it failed to develop and the trek was started further west. The bones found by city workmen probably are those of the Manchester residents or possibly those only of Enoch's family.

At the beginning of the nineteenth the land on which Enoch had settled was given by a patent grant to John Cleves Symmes and included all the land between the Great and Little Miami Rivers. Stephen Vail and Daniel Doty purchased part from Symmes, the land on which Middletown now is located.

The skeletons unearthed have been taken to the city garage and the city commission will be asked tonight just what disposition is to be made of them. One underground stone vault was not touched since it was not in the line of excavation. Other spots nearby also are believed to be graves, but markers for them are gone said to have been used by a farmer to form a base for a barn.