One of the oldest marked burial grounds in Milwaukee County is the Carman family cemetery in Franklin near the Milwaukee County House of Corrections. Edmund Carman, the original owner of the site was an Englishman who came to the Franklin area in 1837. Two years later, he bought 160 acres of farmland, setting aside less than one-half acre for a cemetery.

There are twelve remaining markers with the earliest gravestone that of Eliza Carman, dated February 19, 1839. Two of her brothers, Francis and Edward are buried there as well as Edmund Carman and his wife, Ann Newington. Several non-family gravestones also mark the plot, including two founders of the Town of Franklin, Elias Burr and Hiram F. Smith and others important to the early political life in the township.

The site was first mentioned as a cemetery in the property records of Edmund Carman when his children sold part of the original acreage in 1874. The Burwood Stock Farm purchased the property in 1930 and sixteen years later sold the land to Milwaukee County indicating in the deed the exact location of the cemetery. According to the property records, a stone wall once surrounded the burial site although it is no longer visible. A white cross now dominates the center of the cemetery.