Article by Dorothy Falk.
The Army Corp of Engineers searched for this burial site in 1964 while they were moving cemeteries prior to the flooding of the area to create Carlyle Lake. According to the Clinton County Historical Society (CCHS) Quarterly, Volume 19, Number 1, "the Corp was able to locate a burial site near the west bank of the Kaskaskia River, in an area that was frequently flooded by the River." We have not been able to confirm the Corp did locate this burial site. In an 18 September 2008 e-mail, Joe Smothers, a Natural Resource Specialist with the Carlyle Lake/Kaskaskia Navigation Project Office, confirmed the only cemetery the Corp has recorded with the name "Burnside" is the one located in Section 33 (Burnside Cemetery).
The story of this cemetery, as reported by the CCHS, is a local resident reported a single burial of "an old man that lived in a shack by the river" who died in approximately 1870. He was supposedly buried by his son in a coffin made from a log on a site marked by a large tree. As mentioned above, the Corp did not record finding any evidence of this burial site.
If you look at Section 22 in the 1937 Irishtown Township Plat Map, you will see a bend in the river that just touches the south edge of the section on property owned by J. T. Burnside. If this burial site existed, it is probable that was the location.