Is there such a thing as renting an Embarrassment of Pandas?

One thing Old Br'er tries to do while scampering about the graveyards is insure that there is as good a photo as possible for every marker. In the long run, these photos may end up being the only thing that survives for a grave. Especially one in a remote and unvisited location. True tales of cemeteries being destroyed by developers and land owners are ubiquitous. Legion even.

The Oglethorpe County Historical Society has published (with several updates and revisions) a compendium of the older graveyards and cemeteries within the county borders. It lists (as does Find A Grave) a tiny cemetery near the family cemetery where Br'er has several ancestors buried. It lists only one name and notes 3-5 unmarked graves. Most importantly there are no photos in Find A Grave. Only GPS coordinates for the cemetery and a general description of its location.

Not much to work on. But never be daunted!

The GPS coordinates and description are for a spot a hundred of so yards off the road. Well, it is officially called a road. Opinions on the accuracy of that statement vary. Once upon a time gravel had been spread over the red clay, but it had long since vanished leaving the occasional piece of rock bespeckling the hard packed mud. If you have ever seen a dirt race track then you have a perfect image of this road.

We pulled up roughly in line with the spot and found a wide-ish spot sufficient to park the car and still leave room for another vehicle to safely pass us.

Naturally the road was about 10 feet lower than the acreage we needed to access. And it had rained recently. Goats would have had a challenge scaling the slope in front of us. TW opted to remain with the car. You know, in case a band of gypsies suddenly appeared and tried to steal it. But she emphatically insisted that I venture on. 

She is magnanimous that way.

Now I am accustomed to having to force my way through underbrush and trees on these excursions. What I had never before experienced was acre upon acre of bamboo. I felt like I was in a old Kung-Fu movie. Crouching Rabbit, Hidden Redneck.

Oddly enough, the bamboo was actually easier to navigate. There were few briars and vines. And few trees. 

Cue war movie flashbacks.

What is needed here is an Embarrassment of Pandas. Yes. That is the correct term. Just as there is a Herd of Deer, a Pride of Lions, or a Murder or Crows, a group of pandas is an Embarrassment. This place is so large and overgrown with bamboo that it needs a hundred or so pandas to eat the vegetation and clear the land.

After weaving through the poles and sloughing through the mud I make it to the coordinates. And.... nothing. All I see is more vegetation. I make a search in an increasing spiral for several yards in all directions but still nothing. At least nothing upright and visible. There is a layer of leaves of detritus several inches thick. Anything laying flat would be well hidden. In fact, the muck on the ground is so think that it would be possible to step directly on a marker and not know it. Finding anything here would require a long, detailed, disciplined grid search involving probes and removing the ground cover.

That isn't happening today!

I gave it a good shot. Honor has been served. But now I have a bug to see what else I can learn about this guy.

Off to the research chamber!

I never cease to be astonished at what I find when I start digging into the lives of people long deceased.

I must state up front that not a lot of material has survived. But what does paints an intriguing picture!

John Biggers was born some time in 1812 in Georgia. He married Leticia Yerby 3 Dec 1840. He was about 38 years old and she about 20. There is no record of their having children. Nor is there a clear record of Leticia's parentage.

For the time John was a well propertied man. In 1850, the last enumerations before his death, he shows having hundreds of acres of land, scores of livestock, crops, and, yes, slaves (5 males and 5 females ranging age from 7 to 37. Sadly, no names were recorded so it is virtually impossible to link them to later records after emancipation) assessed for taxation at several thousand dollars. 

John died relatively young. 10 Jan 1856 when he was about 44 years old. Obviously Leticia inherited his entire estate, their not having any children. One Malcom Landrum was the Executor of the will.

Well! The Widow Biggers married almost exactly six and a half months later in July 1856. To whom, you might wonder. Why to Malcom Landrum! And shocker, she was 13 or 14 years older than him. A 19th Century Cougar, perhaps? Or was she seeking security? We can only speculate.

Leticia and Malcom were also childless. 

Leticia passed away somewhere between 7 June 1870  when she appeared on the 1870 US Census taken that day and 1879 when Malcom Landrum married Irene Yerby. The year of their marriage is indicated by the 1900 Census where they are recorded as having been married 21 years.

Frustratingly I cannot connect Irene and Leticia. I would think they probably are related, though. How many Yerbys can there be in the area in and around Oglethorpe County, Georgia in the early 1800s? Might they be sisters? Cousins? Not related at all?

I hate not being able to answer these questions!

Still, this was not the most intriguing bit of detail that cropped up! 

Malcom Miller Landrum, second husband of Leticica, was a Minister. And as I previously noted, they do not appear to have ever had any children. Nor do there appear to have been any children born to Malcom and Irene.

But! I cannot say that Malcom never had any children! 

What?! Was Malcom married a third time? Not that I can determine. 

Allow me to elucidate!

I came across a death certificate for a John Henry Allen. It states that he was born 30 Mar 1882 and died 16 Dec 1922 leaving a widow named Olivia. His mother is listed as Mary (could be something else - the handwriting is unclear) Allen.

His father? Malcom B Landrum. Interesting! Malcomb is one variant spelling of Malcom, as is Malcolm and Malcolmb (trust me - I have LOTS of experience with variant spellings of Malcom!) All my searching cannot find a Malcom B Landrum in the area, only Malcom M Landrum. Considering how often I encounter minor errors on official records, I have little problem accepting the Malcom on John Henry's death certificate as the Malcom who married Leticia and Irene. 

So it looks like Malcom may well have fathered a child out of wedlock! A preacher of all people! (Yeah, like that is an unheard of event at any time in history)

But that is not the whole part of the scandal.

John Henry Allen is listed as Black. Malcom Landrum was white.

I can only think that no one found out at the time. Imagine the backlash of a white preacher having an illegitimate child by a black woman in the South in the 1880s. 

I wonder if Irene knew of Malcom's philandering. Did she know of John Allen's existence? Were there other dalliances and other children?

So many questions that  I will never know the answers to!

Update:

I spoke a little too soon.

Leticia and Irene were 1st cousins! Leticia's father, Burrell, and Irene's father, Everett, were brothers. They were sons of William John Yerby (1728 -1786) and Frances Margaret (McTyre) Yerby (1729–1825)

Whew! I feel better now.

James Monroe Pope - 1833 to 1910

Not something I had envisioned or planned, but for once I am focusing on a single individual. Why? That needs to unfold as I tell the tale.

Let me set the scene. 

Winter has been having its way with the area. Cold. Windy. Raining. Utterly nasty. Coupled with our being cooped up together day in and day out without respite for months on end and you have a recipe for homicide. Clearly I am the more likely of the two to end up a corpse (and according to all outside opinions with absolute justification), so when the weather has turned nice (sunny, warmish, almost Spring-like) and TW blatantly states that she wants to get out of the house I take it as a direct threat to my continued health and well being.

We set out to visit a couple of specific cemeteries. One having a distant cousin to me and the other possibly having relations, but mainly just interesting (those are tales for another time). Having time and daylight remaining we opted to search out some small cemeteries more or less on the way home (less more than more - i.e. we detoured and took a longer way home).

The first attempt was to locate a possible marker. The cemetery in Find A Grave has only one named memorial and no photographs. The coordinates are in the middle of a dense bamboo thicker. I push my way through and reach the spot the coordinates indicate knowing well that these can be off by several yards. Bamboo aside, the area is covered with a mat of leaves and detritus several inches thick. I search in a circle several yards in all directions looking for anything that resembles a grave. Alas, I could not find anything. But with the dense ground covering there could have been a flat stone under my foot and I would not have noticed it.

From there we continue down the gravel (more mud than gravel) road and are shocked when it suddenly shifts back asphalt paving. Up to this point we had been in the middle of thousands of acres of timberland. Mostly acres of pine trees destined to be turned into pulp. In fact, about half the area had clearly been harvested in the past year or two. If you have never seen hundreds of acres clear-cut by a pulp-wood operation then you cannot fathom the devastation. It is eerily similar to No Man's Land in World War I. So you an appreciate the visual shock when the vista changed from logging operations to housing immediately as the road changed from dirt to pavement.

Our next destination was mapped to be about 300 yards past the Line Of Demarcation. Approaching the spot we looked into the trees and brush trying to spy any signs of a graveyard. I thought I spotted it about 50 yards back in dense brush. We looked at each other and decided in unison that we were too tuckered out to push that far back into unkempt lands just to check out a cemetery without any relations in it. I keep driving and notice that there appears to be a path cut back towards the cemetery location.

Well, damn! The cemetery is anything BUT grown over and forgotten. There is a space cleared out that is close to half an acre in the front with the graves being in the back. Several graves have flowers and it is obvious that someone visits semi-regularly. Only a few of the graves have formal stone markers. The rest have only the temporary metal markers provided by the funeral homes to mark the grave until a proper headstone is installed. These have been in place for years. Even decades. This is a practice we have commonly seen followed in predominately Black cemeteries. Names and other practices convince me this is indeed a Black cemetery.

But there is something more going on. The cemetery is clearly divided into what I deem the 'New' and 'Old' sections. The Old section is demarked by a wall of brush, stretches back into the wooded area, consists almost totally of unmarked graves (the sunken graves are clearly obvious, even under the mat of leaves), and is not given the same regular maintenance as the New section. The transition between the sections is the tree line in the rear of the above photo.

There are only 2 actual headstones in the Old section. One marks a death in 1930. The other a death in 1910. This second marker is the one that attracts my attention.

This is a large, expensive monument for the time. Even more so for the area. And more so yet to be in a Black cemetery. That alone warrants a closer look.

The design and style are somewhat common. We jokingly refer to such common pattern monuments by "Sears & Roebuck Number 25" as an inside reference to when headstones could be really be mail-ordered from Sears and other outlets. If you spend any amount of time in older cemeteries you will doubtless notice recurring patterns of markers, especially in family plots where duplicate pattern stones are in place for several graves. Mass production brought down prices making nicer markers more affordable to lower income families. 

This marker has the classic Closed Book and Gates of Heaven motif.

J. M. Pope

Born Jan 15 1833

Died Feb 3 1910

For Many Years A

Faithful Servant Of

The Barrow Family

A Black man, born in Georgia in 1833 and "a faithful servant"? Could this be a man born into slavery who lived to see Emancipation? My curiosity is piqued! More research is needed!

Once we were home I started seeing what I could dig up on J. M. Pope. All I had to go on are initials, a surname, birth and death dates, and a location of the grave. If I am correct and he is Black, that means I face a real uphill slough. Records are sparse at best even into the 20th Century. Before that they get downright impossible to find.

What I found not only asks some interesting questions, it tells one helluva tale!

Up front, I did find his name. James Monroe Pope. I can only assume that the name comes from President James Monroe. Many people ended up with the name of a President over the centuries. But there is nothing I can find that tells how he ended up with the name. President Monroe was dead at least a couple of years by the time our James was born (records have him born closer to 1840 than 1833 as noted on his tombstone, and even the records do not agree - shocking to any who has done any amount of genealogy research, I know).  And he left office six years earlier in 1825. Was our James named for the President? Or did the person who named him have a different relationship with President Monroe? Service in the military perhaps? Alas, we are left with only speculation.

Hardly a surprise, but I can locate little about our James prior to adulthood. Records of Black people - free or slave - are damned rare in the 19th century. Especially in the early to mid-years. One of the first items I can locate is the 1870 United States Census where he appears age 31 , a Mulatto (this would have him born in 1839 and factors into my speculations later) married to Elizabeth (Black, age 30) and the father of a 7 year old son, "Little M".

That entry alone is interesting. The son later turns out to be named James Monroe Pope, Jr. But on the first census where all Blacks (at least those who responded or were not deliberately excluded) were enumerated as people instead of chattel the kid is listed by a nickname. 

Beautiful. That is a real snapshot into this family. It brings people to life in a way few other things could. Surprising what little unexpected facts you can glean from these records.

I pause here to define a term and place it in context as it factors in the data analysis. Mulatto. In most precise terms this is a person with one White and one Black parent, though it was also used more generally to denote mixed race. There were other terms used at the time to denote even more specific percentage of Black ancestry. Someone with one Black grandparent was a Quadroon, and one Black Great-Grandparent was an Octaroon. While common at the time these terms are long relegated to history and at best deemed passé. At worst they are deeply offensive racist slurs. Whatever your feelings on the words are, they are what was recorded and need to be acknowledged for the data they reveal.

In this case this reveals to an almost certitude that James had a Black mother and White father, or less probable, a White grandfather. Given the dates, locations, races, and other matters involved, the most probable case was that he was born to a slave woman impregnated by a white slave owner with probable details that would have involved. This, too, factors into my analysis later.

As an additional bit of 'interesting' data; on the 1870 Census James appears 5 households after one of my 3rd Great-Grandfathers and 8 households away from one of my 2nd Great-Grandfathers (the Son-in-Law of that 3rd Great-Grandfather) meaning it is highly probable that my ancestors knew if - if not knew specifically - James. The respective farms were only a few miles apart. Practically neighbors for the time.

But! That is not the earliest record I find. The earliest entry is James appearing in the Reconstruction Registration Oath Book in 1867.

For those not familiar with this bit of history, in order to "Exercise The Franchise" - that is vote - for delegates to the State Constitutional Convention in 1867 were required to sign an oath that eligible to vote (basically the individual swore that he was not a felon and had not participated in rebellion or insurrection against the United States Government - this prevented Confederates from voting until their rights were later restored). This is the first time I have encountered these records. 

I know I have the right James Monroe Pope when I see the designation "Col" after his name (James is the entry on the bottom of the page).

It may seem odd and unnecessary to have a Black man in Georgia immediately post slavery take an oath that he did not fight for the Confederacy. But bear in mind that Felons were also barred from voting. Felon status - whether due to a conviction as a slave or free man - would also preclude being able to vote. Still, it does look like a damned fool requirement all things considered until all the facts are considered.

Whether James actually voted or not I have not been able to learn. At least we know he tried to some extent. Pretty gutsy.

I find additional Census entries for James and family in 1880 and 1900 (recall that the 1890 Census was destroyed in a fire in the 1930s) where two additional children appear; William (born 1872) and Lizzie (probably Elizabeth though all records give her name only as Lizzie, born 1875).

Focusing on the 1880 Census for a moment, it shows James under the name Monroe born about 1840, and Elizabeth as "Betsy" and born in 1835! More interesting is the appearance of a Black female named Cain Barrow, age 80 (making her born about 1800). On most Census records there is what some people call a "Bug" - a check mark, an 'X', or some other doodle to indicate which person in the household provided the data. This is helpful in cases like this in determining the relationship listed. Specifically, whose mother this is, James' or Elizabeth's. Unfortunately there is no Bug on the family's entry. Damn. 

Assuming that she is James' mother lacking anything to the contrary (such as being listed as Mother-in-Law as was often done), and that she was a former slave, we have a titillating clue to consider. Slaves had no surnames. With Emancipation they had to select one. Many took the name of their former owner. Cain was almost certainly a former slave. Did she choose the name of her former master? Barrow? That was a family of note in the area (indeed, there is a nearby County bearing the name!). With the inscription on James' marker added to the mix it seems very probable that she did. And this is not the last time the Barrow name comes up.

That Barrow name again. A pattern is emerging.

We can only wonder what that missing 1890 Census might have revealed.

The 1900 Census brings more questions than answers, I am afraid. James is listed under the name Monroe again along with wife Lizzie, but this time with two grandsons, Arthur R and Charlie Davenport ages 4 and 1 respectively. James is now Black as the Mulatto designation is no longer used.

It is here where the questions start up. 

Lizzie and James are shown to be married 41 years. 1900 minus 41 places the marriage in 1859. Was this a pseudo-marriage of slaves? Was it a legally acknowledged marriage between Free People? Was there ever anything more than a Common Law marriage? Unless documentation of a registered marriage miraculously appears we will never know. If their marriage started only as a declaration between slaves then the fact they managed to remain together during and after slaver then it is all the more remarkable they were together so long. 

Lizzie is recorded as having born 2 children with none surviving. Huh? We have already seen James and wife having three children. And if they were together 41 years then this could not possibly be a second wife. More on this paradox later. Stay tuned!

With only one known daughter, and unless there is a real hoo-ha with one of the sons having illegitimate children, these two had to be the children of daughter Lizzie by some man named Davenport. Is Lizzie deceased at this point? She was born about 1875 so she was about 20 when Arthur R was born in 1895 and 23 when Charlie was born in 1898 (these birth years are noted on the 1900 Census). If she is alive, why are her sons living with their grandfather?

These questions goaded me into researching and building a family tree for James and Elizabeth. More on where that led later.

One last note on the 1900 Census: The household immediately after James' is that of a widow, Nettie Edwards, and her seven children. Remember that name.

James was taxed throughout the last half of the 19th Century on about 251 acres of land along with livestock and other property. Under any circumstances this is damned impressive. A Black man in the 1800s owning property was in and of itself no small feat. And if he was a recently freed slave then it is not only impressive, it is nearly a miracle! How? Where did the money come from? Or, perhaps, was this something done to protect the land from confiscation? Could it have been transferred to him by his White father/former owner?

Detailed land records are not immediately available to me (damned pandemic!) so I cannot determine the ownership history of the land James ultimately held. Maddeningly there are Pope and Barrow landholders - several of them - making it possible that either or both families could be involved in his coming to own the property. 

Or he could have free and worked to earn and amass the wealth.

James died in January 1910 so he did not live long enough to participate in the 1910 Census. But he left a will! 

After the pro forma statement that his just debts be paid he leaves Elizabeth $300 and grants her the right to dwell in their home on the farm and use the garden (bear in mind that a garden would have been next to the house and been intended for food as opposed to the for-profit crops grown on the farm itself) until her death or remarriage,

Next he leaves the farm and all the ancillary goods to one Net Edwards and her 7 children. Remember the Nettie Edwards living next to James on the 1900 Census? The name I told you to remember? Yup. She gets all the property! Specifically she and her children as once the youngest is of age they all divide the property and get one eighth share each. All this subject, of course, to the provisions granted to Elizabeth.

Nice for them! 

Next he speaks to his two sons, James Monroe, Jr. and William.

Wait. What? According to the 1900 Census there are no surviving children. Maybe what he leaves the boys will explain that. 

"To my sons J. Monroe Pope, Jr and William Pope I give one dollar each. I have already given them advances equal to full share of my estate.

 As Net Edwards and her children by their labor assisted me in paying for the farm, I think this will is just."

Ouch! That is a serious rebuke! And one could easily see the 'no living children' count from the 1900 Census as being a statement that his sons were dead to him. 

And Lizzie was not referenced at all!.

Lastly he names his Executor. James Barrow. Barrow! Again with that name! How tempting it is to weave a tale whereby James has a White father named Barrow who effectively acknowledges James as his son, gives him a position of trust in the family, transfers land to him post war, and there being a sufficient relationship of trust with the Barrows that James names one to be his executor. A half-brother? Nephew?

The imagination reels!

All these revelations and questions led to building out that Family Tree to see if it would provide any more answers.

The answer is Yes. And No.

James, Jr. married a woman named Alice. He died in 1923. They had seven children, four sons and three daughters. I haven't traced all those lines yet. Two of the sons, Walter and Jonah served overseas in World War I. Several vanish from the records in the 1910s. Only two lived to adulthood for certain, Maggie and Jonah.

William last appears on the 1910 Census then vanishes.

Lizzie, on the other hand, married Jessie Davenport. They had eight children - six sons and two daughters. Lizzie disappears after the 1910 Census when she would have been 35 or so. A victim of the Spanish Flu, perhaps? Their children scattered to the Four Winds, ending up in any number of far flung states.

What happened in this family that James would so deliberately snub his children so? For him to have amassed a decent estate only to give it all to someone else? Who can tell?


But my imagination and my analytic nature joins forces here. I see someone born to and of the worst circumstances who ended up thriving and prospering. And that is a life worth remembering.

A Second Unicorn!

Several months back I was out with Br'er Papa when we spotted a granite marker beside the road and stopped to check it out. Turned out it was for a family cemetery (some family - one grave!). But shocker of shocker, it was not in Find A Grave. I had a Unicorn on my hands - a cemetery not already in Find A Grave! The lone grave in it dates from 1994 thus making research more than a little difficult. At least more than usual since most of the people involved are probably living. 

Still, I was able to add a legitimate new cemetery which is tres cool.

Fast forward about a month and I start getting hammered about this "cemetery at the airport" from Mother. Seems an acquaintance of her and Pop knows of a cemetery near what they are calling an airport in North Georgia. Nothing will do but I look into it for them.

(sigh)

Naturally there are zero specifics. Not an exact location. Not the name of someone buried in it, Nothing at all.

(sigh)

Airport. Did I say 'airport'? No. Landing strip is far more accurate. Mother keeps urging me to simply go there and look around. I cannot get her to understand these are not places one simply goes wandering about uninvited and unannounced. Best case it is a legitimate operation and you risk getting arrested. Worst case it is far from legit and you risk getting shot. 

I am NOT going in and trespassing. No way, no how.

I spend a non-insignificant amount of time trying to find something on it on-line. It is in excess of an hour drive on the highway from home so I am less than sanguine about making the trip with so little to go on up front. Having put this off as long as I can I am force to make a site visit. With the parents. Whee!

Let's skip over the drive there and the socializing with their friend that presaged going to the actual cemetery. An entire day spent and we only get to the site at dusk. I literally had minutes to survey the place and gather information.

Damned if this isn't the second Unicorn in less than two months! The cemetery (which as far as I can discern under the circumstances) consists of a single headstone shared by three individuals: A husband, his wife, and their child. A surname, and a death date: "Mr. & Mrs. Knox, and Child Died 1847" Nothing more. I am told there are supposed to be more graves, but damned if we can find them in the few minutes of gloom available.

But there is no recorded cemetery for the site, nor do there appear to be memorials matching the family anywhere in the area. I get to add a second cemetery! I don't know that I can think of anyone I know or have even conversed with who has added one cemetery to say nothing of two!

Returning to the warren, I start trying to find out more about this family. Names alone would be nice so that their Find A Grave memorials could record them. Dates would be even better. Their story - how they came to die at the same time - would be glorious.

Would be. Those are the operative words. Because I found almost NOTHING! And what I did find I could not link to them.

I should note that 1847 is fairly early in the history of the area from the perspective of white settlers. There are several - well a few - Knox recorded in the area at the time. Some are buried in nearby cemeteries. Building out family trees for them quickly eliminates them as the Knox I am looking for. But I cannot find anything specific to deaths from 1847. There are some earlier tax records that could possible be my missing Knox patriarch, but then again may not be. And they are a couple of decades before the deaths. I cannot find a will, newspaper, or anything else on topic. At least not on-line. There may be hard copy materials in the county archives or library, and there may be an historical society with something. Sadly the pandemic has most of those resources closed for the duration.

On the bright side, this is not something related to my personal genealogy work. If it were I would be pissed off!

Military Monday

Ok. It's been a minute, as the youngsters say today, since I posted anything new. Finally rectifying that.

I had wandered through Comer Memorial Cemetery several weeks back and noted a couple of military markers. They tweaked my curiosity enough that I flagged them for additional research.

A moment of regression and explanation is warranted here before proceeding.

First, I am somewhat ergophobic. That is a fancy way of saying 'lazy'. One of my mantras is, "Don't make it harder than it has to be."

Second, my thoughts are often faster than my hands so I have to use shortcuts to try and keep the two in synch.

Third, for any number of reasons I tend to not take new photos of graves if there is already a good on on Find A Grave. They just make for additional work later, and, frankly, I tend to forget that I took them and where. For these reasons I usually just steal a photo from Find A Grave when needed. Today is just such a case.

So! My basic approach on graves such as these that I want to follow-up on is to add them to a Virtual Cemetery in Find A Grave. This essentially creates a To-Do list I can access from almost anywhere. I have virtual cemeteries for any number of specific follow-up needs: Family to visit, Potential Family to Research, Updates to be Submitted, etc.

That said, on to the good stuff.

John's marker jumped out at me because I simply do not encounter many graves for Spanish American War veterans. They may be more common elsewhere, but not in these parts. Seeing that there are no dates on the marker, I pulled him up in Find A Grave to see if they were recorded.

What I found offended my sensibilities. Not only no dates, but no family either. This is not good. So I flagged him for later research.

Howard's marker also jumped out at me, though in his case the date was what grabbed my attention. 1943. Almost certainly a wat casualty, but without a birth date who could say for certain? Howard was flagged as well.

I finally got around to the research.

I swear that both men appeared fully formed from nowhere! Sheesh! Talk about a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Not to be completely daunted, I kept pushing and managed to find death certificates for both along with a little additional documentation.

Turns out John William Cooper was born in 1880 somewhere in Georgia. I would speculate he was from Madison, Clarke, Oglethorpe, Oconee, or Elbert County, but I see nothing confirming it. Just that he was born in Georgia. Sadly he died relatively young at age 46 at a Naval Hospital in Atlanta of Apoplexy and Heart issues.

Whoever provided the details for his death certificate had no knowledge of his family. Neither a father nor mother are listed.

But I did find his wife and managed to link her to him in Find A Grave as well as update his birth and death details.

Howard Stevens Chandler is an even more tragic case than John. He was born in 1921 and was killed in a airplane crash near the Marine Corps Base at Cherry Point, North Carolina. He was only 22 at the time. As sad as every death is during a war, it is worse, in my book, when the death accomplishes nothing. A combat death can at least be argued to have achieved something. A death outside combat is simply a waste of a life.

Nothing much about his parents. The death certificate has conflicting data on them. It was initially filled out listing both as Unknown. There are handwritten entries added later, but they are indecipherable and make no sense. Nothing much on a spouse, either, if he had one.

Neither man appeared to have fathered any children.

Wright Place, Wright Time

When we last left off TW and I had just finished auditing a family cemetery out in the boondocks and had sought to locate another cemetery a few yards away. We were sitting in the car on the roadside, praying for a decent cell signal so that I can verify the location. The cemetery appears to be off in the woods (aren't they all?) and I want to start as close to the stated site as possible rather than wander aimlessly through a thicket.

Naturally a car rolls up and asks if we are having a problem. Don't be mistaken - Southern Hospitality in these cases is an equal measure of a genuine offer of assistance and wanting to know what the hell a stranger is doing snooping around the place.

"No. No problem. Just trying to locate an old cemetery."

"Oh. That. It's just over there. (pointing over into the woods). See that old driveway? Just in from there a few feet. You know there's another one over there? (pointing back to the Paul and Lester cemetery we just left)"

I explain that we just left that cemetery and thank him for directing us to the second site. I pull closer to the spot and head off into the brush (TW is a bit tuckered out at this point and opts to let me fly solo.

Fortunately there is at least one upright marker or I would not have found the place! 7 listed memorials. One being a substantial upright pillar of sorts and 5 being basic, thick above the ground rectangle slabs. These are easily found (all being in one row!) Picture a basic family plot in a large cemetery, with granite borders. It is just that the plot is alone, out in the woods, and not visible until you are right on top of it.

But there is a problem. The seventh grave is not visible. Find A Grave has is listed and has a photo of the marker. However it seems to be a level with the ground slab, though, and there is substantial detritus built up. I start kicking and scraping with my foot. The site is not that large so it only takes a minute or two to find it. 

Success! All 7 graves audited and GPS tagged!

The real shocker from this visit only came after we had returned home. I will sometimes do a little research on the people whose graves we find to use writing these silly posts. So I open Ancestry and start searching for the patriarch of this little Wright family.

If you have never noticed, when searching in general in Ancestry you are prompted to use details for any person in your Ancestry tree who matches you search criteria. Imagine my surprise to see John Hubbard Wright already in my tree!

Clearly I have missed something here. More focused attention is necessary. I settle in and start digging.

Come to find out that his wife, Sarah, is my 1st cousin 4x removed! She is a granddaughter of my 4th GGF! I had her and her husband in the tree but had never traced their line any further. Rest assured that is corrected now. At least two more generations added to the tree on this line Others in the cemetery are her children making them my 2nd cousins 3x removed (several of the children never married and I find them all in the same household in the censuses - so far as they have been released).

It is always sad to find these abandoned cemeteries. It is sadder still to realize that the abandonment is relatively recent. In this case the last burial was in 1966. Hell, I was around by then and I am not all that old. 

Am I?

Paul and Lester

Sounds like a comedy duo doesn't it?

This is another case of my having to tell a story (I will not say Long Story. Some things are simply too obvious to comment on. I do not think I am genetically capable of telling short stories.) Without the background there is no way to explain why I was where I was and doing what I was doing.

There was an elderly woman who lived across the street from my paternal grandmother. It is pretty impressive that I remember her at all, much less any details because my grandmother passed away when I was 3 1/2 years old. We would make the trip pretty much every weekend to Grandmother's place to check in on her. She was (obviously) in failing health and a widow. Visits meant the adults were in the house talking and we youngsters were promptly ushered outside and told to not bother the adults. A lot of time as spent on the porch swing. I could go on and on describing the house, yard, and neighborhood, but that would take too long and isn't entirely necessary. Just know it was an old house in an old neighborhood of an old town. This was NOT the posh place to be.

Well Mrs. Hamilton kinda-sorta adopted us. She, too, was an elderly widow and had lived there many years. Inevitably within minutes of our arrival she would come scampering - if a woman that age could scamper - over to give us a brown paper bag (picture a lunch bag) filled with popcorn. Freshly popped and still hot, mind you.

Now you need to appreciate this popcorn. I doubt you have ever experienced anything like it.

First, it was popped in a pot on the stove. There were no microwave ovens back then. And products like Jiffy-Pop were on the market, but they were hideously expensive to people in our group. That was something only rich people could afford. No one around these parts were that rich! So Mrs. Hamilton took popcorn kernels, put them in a big, wide pot with some oil, slapped on the lid, and stood at the stove shaking that pot while holding the lid on until the popping slowed down (there were always some kernels that would not ever pop so if you waited until the popping stopped entirely you would end up with burned popcorn!). At that point you removed the pot from the stove and wait a few seconds (opening the lid too soon risked having a few kernels go off once the lid was removed and sending popcorn across the room). Then you added the salt. And if you were being really fancy, you added melted butter. The whole thing gets tossed before you start eating.

Mrs. Hamilton was not fancy or rich enough to go with the butter. But the salt? That was applied with a vengeance!

Second, popcorn made this way is dry. Drier than you can fathom without experiencing it. Imagine a crunchy sponge that has been sitting in Death Valley in July for a few days. Damned near freeze-dried. Desiccated. Saltine crackers have more moisture. Add in salt and you have something that could kill almost any life form it comes in contact with.

If we were very, very, VERY lucky we might get a soft drink, too. But those were rare. Most of the time we had to go to the side of the house and get a drink of water from the garden spigot. No hose. Just a spigot. Fortunately we were short and it was a good distance off the ground.

Fast forward several years and Mrs. Hamilton is being forced to relocate. The house she has been renting for literally decades (for a pittance - about $50 a month). By sheer coincidence my parents have purchased and renovated a house two doors down on the same street. So they allow her to move into it and not have to leave the neighborhood that had been her home for so long. Yes, there was a small rent increase. But it did not cover even half the actual mortgage payment for the house. The parental units really just adopted her and subsidized her expenses. And she never knew.

ANYWAY, all that is to explain the piece of furniture I have in my kitchen. It is called a 'Plantation Desk' and was was originally made by one of Mrs. Hamilton's grandfathers. At least that is what she told my parents when she gave it to them.

Before anyone gets excited about a Plantation Desk, I should explain a few things. Contrary to what most people envision, with a few exceptions a Plantation was basically just a farm. Erase images of Tara, Oak Alley, and the like. Those were the rare exception. Most plantations were little more than a basic working farm. The desk is very plain and was used by the owner/farmer as a work and storage space to keep his books. Farmers kept ledgers of everything; crops planted, yields, inventories, expenses, etc. in old style Ledger Books. If you haven't seen these, just picture the books Bob Cratchit was working on for Ebeneezer Scrooge. The desk as a lidded base that could hold several ledgers as well as serve as the desk top to lay the ledgers flat and update them, and an upper cabinet with about 3 shelves that could hold smaller books, pens, and misc. other items. Originally both sections had locks, but those are LONG gone. I use it to store spices and gadgets in my kitchen.

Recently during a discussion with the parents (never ask how these things happen in this family) Mother revealed how Mrs. Hamilton once told her that she had lost four babies but could not remember where they are. We are probably talking about some 60 years after the children died. This led to my building out a family tree for Mrs. Hamilton to see if I could, against all odds, find where the infants were buried.

See? I did eventually bring this long saga back around to a cemetery!

Short version of that effort is that I could not find the infants. No real shock there. But I did find her paternal and maternal family back 2-3 generations and for a woman born in 1896 in the rural South, that ain't hay. 

But as I have both pairs of her grandparents I have the names of both her grandfathers. *ONE* of them is the one who made the plantation desk. Unless Irene lied.

Side note: One of her grandfathers was arrested in 1876 for running illicit liquor! 

Ordinarily I would not do this, but the newspaper article about the matter is simply too good to not share. I steal this from a transcription shared on Ancestry.

Begin quote:

The Oglethorpe Echo
Crawford and Lexington, Oglethorpe County, Georgia
Friday, February 25, 1876 (Vol II, No 20), Page 3, Columns 4 and 5

 

"‘CROOKED WHISKEY.’ The Revenue Officers Make a Raid on Our County. 22 CITIZENS AND 9 STILLS ARE CAPTURED. Full Account of the Affair.

On Saturday last our usually quiet and law-abiding county was invaded by a batch of infernal revenue officers, backed by a company of blue-bellies, who, without ceremony, commenced to arrest our citizens in a manner that for awhile fears were entertained that one entire community (Sandy Cross) would fall a prey to them. Twenty-two parties were arrested "from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same," besides the capture and destruction of nine stills and several thousand gallons of "prepared corn." The prisoners were brought into Crawford on Sunday last, as also the captured stills, under a guard of fifteen soldiers, commanded by Lieutenant Harkins, and a squad of detectives, from the mountains of North Georgia, headed by the notorious Findley, who is, we believe, considered the best "tracker" in Uncle Sam’s employ. It is said that he can sit down in Gainesville and smell a run being made in the heart of the Okefinokee Swamp.

Below we give the names of the arrested parties, several of them being among our best citizens:

Whites - W.T. Doster, Joseph Moore, Thos. C. Jennings, Wm. Pass, Taylor Eades, Rainy Eades, Wiley Hopper, John Escoe, J.F. Cunningham (U.S. Commissioner), and James Cunningham (once Republican Representative from Oglethorpe).

Colored - Stephen Faver, Dab Arnold, Henry Thornton, Lee Hubbard, Scott Parks, Nathan McElvoy, Manson Fleming, Step Hubbard, Jesse Davenport, John Goolsby, Jacob Davenport.

On Sunday night they were taken to Atlanta, where, we learn, all, with a few exceptions, gave bond for their appearance before Judge Erskine on the first Monday in March next. But little difficulty was experienced in securing bondsmen, as several gentlemen from this county accompanied the prisoners as witnesses, who readily went on the same.

Besides the arrest, no indignities, we believe, were shown the prisoners. While in Crawford, their friends were allowed to visit them, and we noticed several of them walking about the village. On being carried aboard the train, the negroes were tied with ropes, but not so the whites.

The captured stills had been mashed and rendered worthless by Findley. They will be sold as old copper, at 2½¢ per pound. One of them had been in use so long that it could be torn like paper-- a trooper expressing the opinion that it was some of the copper-plating from Noah’s Ark.

We interviewed Mr. Findley, and found him very communicative, readily answering all inquiries. We learned from him that some months since he equipped several wagons at Gainesville, under charge of detectives, which started out ostensibly for the purpose of selling apples and "blockade whiskey," but, in reality, to spy out illicit distilleries. Two of these wagons wended their way through Jackson county, where they first began to "strike ile," and at last, as if directed by fate, entered our county, which had always borne a reputation as spotless as the falling snow, and drew reins at Sandy Cross. Here they struck such a bold well that they concluded to go no further. So "spotting" eleven "crooked whiskey" manufactories in almost a stone’s throw of that point, which their pretended business rendered an easy matter, they retraced their steps, leaving the victims unconscious that their sacred precincts had been invaded by wolves in sheep’s clothing–that they had nurtured hissing reptiles in their bosoms.

Reaching Gainesville, they reported their success to Findley. He having other business on hand, allowed the matter to lay over a couple of months, well knowing that the fruit being within his reach, he could pluck it at any time.

Arranging all matters, he telegraphed to Atlanta for fifteen "head" of soldiers, whom he secreted in several wagons hired for the purpose, with the detectives for drivers. Proceeding on, they "gobbled" up the victims as fast as found. Before reaching this county, they traveled all night, so as to take their victims completely by surprise, and commenced the onslaught at Sandy Cross at 7:20, with what success the array of names at the head of this column will show. No resistance was made to the officers, and as fast as captured the prisoners were turned over to the troops for safe keeping, Findley and his detectives doing all the arresting.

The news of the raid, of course, spread like wild-fire, and it was a race between the officers and the distillers as to which would remove all signs of the stills first. When Findley reached the site of one of them, he found the still gone, the logs of the building burned up, and a contra busy with a mule plowing up the very foundation of the shanty. But the branch was knee deep in "mash," which told the tale.

You may burn, you may remove the house if you will,

But, the signs of the whiskey will cling ‘round a still.

The darkey was captured and frightened into disclosing the hiding place of his master, who was also taken. But the missing still could not be found. Rumor even goes so far as to assert that an old lady who ran a still on this same branch, a couple of miles below, succeeded in catching enough of this "mash," as it went "floating down the stream," to make a fair "run" that night. But as to the truth of the report we do not vouch.

Several citizens were arrested who are known to be innocent of the charges brought against them, at which their friends were justly incensed. In fact, at one time, the passions of the citizens were so inflamed that about fifty men met with the avowed intention of rescuing their friends at all hazards. But, happily, cooler counsel prevailed, and they decided to trust to the law to correct and punish this wonton outrage on a (said to be) free people. We are glad that they allowed their discretion in this case to overcome valor, for had they made the attempt, if even successful, ‘twould have involved them in a serious difficulty with the Federal authorities.

Those distillers against whom conclusive proof was had, while having the sympathy of our people in their difficulty, of course cannot complain. They knew the law and ran the risk. They lost, and so must take the consequences. A majority of them are good citizens, who consider any means by which they can "beat" the United States Government a righteous act. These are our sentiments, but we hope that in future they will discover a more successful method to "get back" some of the funds the Government robbed them of.

Mr. Findley says that according to the revenue laws, all property found within the enclosure that surrounds an illicit distillery is confiscated, whether it be land, stock or personal property. Under this rule the entire farm of one of our citizens will go, for the house was unenclosed, and he was caught in the act of making a run. In North Georgia, where the distillers have been arrested until they begin to rather like it, the first thing a man does when he starts a still is to build a fence around it.

Among instances of unjust arrests, we will mention the cases of two negroes, who were persuaded, under a plea of accommodation, to sell a couple of detectives a dime’s worth of whiskey and tobacco. They were then arrested for a violation of the revenue laws. Any man who would use such means to secure the fee attached to the arrest of a prisoner, would not hesitate to pick your pocket had he an opportunity.

We do not think Sandy Cross will be a very healthy locality for apple peddlers in future. In fact, we doubt if one of that class could even comfortably pass near the place, and so would advise them to give it as wide a berth as possible–even if they had to go 100 miles out of their way.

We learn that some of the distillers accuse Mr. D.C. Smith, formerly of that settlement, with reporting them. We asked Mr. Findley in regard to this suspicion, and he says there is no truth whatever in the report–that the distilleries were found and reported by one of his own detectives, who, under a plea of purchasing liquor, visited every one of the stills in person.

P.S.–We learn, since the above was in type, that Mr. James Cunningham has been released. It was the junior, not the senior, James Cunningham, that was wanted.

Messrs. Mathews and Lumpkin, who accompanied the prisoners to Atlanta as counsel, made able arguments in their behalf.

End quote

I mentioned my findings to my parents. I shared a few photographs of her and her parents and grandparents, and extended family members.

I should have known I was starting a fight that I would get sucked into. My parents have different memories of the whos, whens, and wheres of Irene's family. Naturally I was supposed to arbitrate the dispute. Alas, the documentation conflicts with both their memories.

For example, there is a photo of her - Irene- as a young (10-12ish) girl alongside her parents and another girl of similar age. The second girl is identified by first name. Both my parents recall the girl - Florence - (though obviously as an adult) and both are adamant that she was a cousin of Irene. Problem is that the US Census lists Florence in the same home as Irene but she is a sibling, not cousin. Now we all know that records can be incorrect. But there is no documentation I can find (yet) supporting Florence as anything but a sister to Irene. Not that this matters one whit to my parents.

Now they are hooked and want me to get everything I can on Irene's family. You see, they have contact with Irene's only granddaughter and want me to make a book of sorts with all this information for her. After all, its so easy for me to do!

It isn't like any of us can easily tell our parents to go pound sand.

(sigh)

ALL THAT JUST TO GET TO THIS POINT! Irene's paternal grandfather is in a cemetery very near the Cooper Cemetery I previously posted about. So long as we were in the area and had time it made sense to see if we could find it and many audit the cemetery.

I love GPS! Were it not for GPS I don't think we would have found the place. The cemetery sits about 75 or 80 yards back from the road and is effectively hidden behind a house and a heavily wooded area. Access is via a 'driveway' of sorts running between the home lot and the woods. The cemetery is visible only if you look straight down the access lane. Any angle from either border of the lane cannot see it.

But it is a delightful little family cemetery and is obviously well maintained. Grass cut, weeds trimmed, etc.

As we have the time and there are fewer than 60 graves listed, we go ahead and audit the cemetery (and find at least one memorial to add to Find A Grave). And I end up with more research to do. See, the cemetery is listed in Find A Grave as Paul and Lester Cemetery. And there are many Pauls and Lesters in it to be sure. But Irene's grandparents were buried here long before any Lesters or Pauls (indeed some of his daughters married a Paul and the Lesters came in later). Why then is it not listed as the Burckhalter Cemetery?

Worse, the earliest graves by far bear the names Meriwether. So why not Meriwether Cemetery? 

And yes, dammit, I have gone down the rabbit hole trying to link everyone in the cemetery. And I have failed miserably. 

Anyhoo, I note there is another small - some 7 graves - cemetery a few yards across the road from the Paul and Lester. What the hell. Might as well locate it, too. So we did and that led to another shocker that is a minor tale all its own.

How can anyone be so wrong? or Scratching my OCD itch

I suggest you get a lovely beverage apropos of whatever time of day (or night) you happen to be reading this post. Old Br'er is about to be his long winded self. This looks to be a long one because there is a LOT of backstory and tangential crud that all relates.

And I warn you now that it is possibly the first "Continued on next post" I have ever done. 

Does that give you fair waring? Yes, it does. Proceed at your own risk.

Here comes some of the necessary backstory: 

I have mentioned before (I think - I am too lazy to go back and check all the prior posts to confirm. And it is probably better to repeat myself since it is unlikely that anyone has read all the past stuff, much less remembers it all. Especially if I don't recall it myself and I WROTE it) that I have a special needs cousin living in a care facility and that The Old Man (Br'er's father) has been named Custodian for him since his father (Pop's brother) passed away. Among other things, this entails regular visits to the facility to check on him and keep him as engaged with family as possible. (He is profoundly mentally challenged). I often accompany Pop on these trips.

Well, he has gotten into finding these old cemeteries, too. I think he likes the idea of knowing something I do not. And he seems to enjoy doing a little clean-up of the smaller ones to help prevent their being lost, destroyed, or forgotten. 

Further, he and I have an eerily parallel history with our immediate ancestors. Both of us had 3 out of 4 grandparents die either before we were born or shortly thereafter. And both of us had only one great-grandparent - a great-grandmother - survive into our adulthood but, as both women were less than pleasant, we had little interaction with them. And virtually nothing of family history was passed down. Ancestors simply were not discussed. 

As has been repeated to the point of driving people insane, I inherited the family genealogy work and have been expanding the tree to include all the distant relations. Really distant relations. In this case I was looking at the sons (and their descendants) of my 5th Great Grand-father. In general, Pop doesn't care much about the family tree. Unless! Unless, that is, it is presented as a story that makes them real. Knowing where they lived or had land, what they did for a living, anything about them that made the local papers, odd things they did, or details in their will (odd codicils or just the inventory of goods and chattels listed for tax purposes) tweak his interest. And obviously their graves. 

All that dithering done now, I can start getting to the meat of this post.

I find a memorial in Find A Grave for a 1st cousin 5x removed in a small family cemetery VERY near the facility where my cousin lives. There are about 14 memorials listed and there are photographs of each one. Large headstones and markers so it is not one of those cases where this is where someone is believed to be buried or known to be buried but is unmarked. The GPS coordinates show it back in the woods. Fortunately it is only about 100 yards off a road (according to the map). There is what looks (on satellite view) a house nearby. So we - the parental units and I - plan to check it out on the next visit to the cousin. Cool.

Until we actually try getting there.

Turns out the property is Posted Private Property - No Trespassing, and is a hunting camp. The road that leads close to the cemetery site is actually a private road. There is a locked gate blocking the entrance. While there is a large billboard like sign with all these notices posted, there is nothing about a name or contact number for the property.

Damn.

Had the cemetery been just past the fence line we probably would have taken the risk and gone under the gate and checked it out. But the location given was somewhere between a quarter and a half mile in. Walking in is NOT an option.

I take a photo of the billboard so I can search for contact data later and we abort the mission.

Back in the Warren, I go into full bore Research Geek mode.

First up I find the site in the county property tax records. Someone has to be paying taxes on the land! Turns out that the property is held by a Family Trust and leased out for hunting. These land trusts are fairly common as a means to reduce taxes and keep the land intact and in the family. I fire off a letter to the trust address explaining that I have a relative in the cemetery, would like to visit it, and asking how we can make that happen. I give my contact details and include an SASE, drop it in the mail and wait.

In the interim I start researching the cemetery and those in it.

Right off the bat I have a mystery. The cemetery name in Find A Grave is listed as Cooper Cemetery #1 (don't go searching for that - I will explain later). But my relative's name is William Locklin Griffith, How did a Griffith (and the only one listed with that name) end up in a Cooper cemetery? Did he or one of his offspring marry a Cooper?

The majority if names in this cemetery are Coopers, but there are a few that are not. Hmmmm. Presumably there is SOME relationship between them. 

I start off pushing this cousin's tree looking for that Cooper connection. But there is not one I can find! I do find his father in-law, Archer Norris, listed in the same cemetery. So there are two mysteries, now: Why are these two here?

I can pretty much link all the other burials to the Cooper family. But these two have me puzzled.

And in typical fashion I manage to find an Cooper infant's death certificate that appears to show the child in this cemetery. So I add that memorial and link it to the parents memorials. Good deed accomplished.

After many hours going down the figurative Rabbit Hole and virtually exhausting everything I can accomplish on-line, I put the whole thing aside. The holidays come and go. Weeks pass and I all but cease to even think about this whole mess.

Then my phone rings. 

Ordinarily I ignore calls from phone numbers I do not know. I have lost track of the number of calls I have gotten about extending my car warranty (worth noting is that I have a lifetime bumper to bumper warranty from the manufacturer for my car - it doesn't expire!). And as I live in Georgia and this was the run-up to the hotly contested US Senate run-off elections you can appreciate the insane volume of calls from both parties. Some days saw in excess of 15 political robo-calls.

Let's just say these calls make me cranky. VERY cranky. Woe betide the telemarketer that catches me at such moments.

Against my better judgement I answer the call. Good thing I did.

"I have a letter here from you about a cemetery on our land."

Now I have to confess that this threw me for a loop. I was really expecting a letter - or possibly an email - essentially telling me to go pound sand. The last thing I expected was a phone call. I had to really switch mental gears to get back on track.

David introduced himself and explained that there is no cemetery anywhere on their land. He has walked the whole several hundred acre tract many times and there simply isn't a cemetery there. He adds that some 10 or 15 years back two ladies had approached him about this cemetery and he had explained to them that their data was in error.

Rather than telling me to pound sand, he offers to meet with me some time so I can see for myself there is nothing there. He adds that the location would be a really bad place to put a cemetery as it is on a riverbank subject to flooding.

We chat a little longer and he goes on to relate that a local man he hires for odd jobs told him about this cemetery and how he used to maintain it - cleared brush, limbs, etc. - but doesn't any more. When asked why he stopped he explained that he used to be paid by a family member or descendant to do the work. Apparently they died off. When the money stopped, he stopped the work. 

Can't exactly blame him.

David went on to relate how he took the handyman and cleaned the site again. It was about a mile from where the graves I was seeking are alleged to be.  Sadly he could not recall any of the names on the markers. He gives me very detailed directions to the location and I pull this up on-line as we chat.

Well son-of-a .....

Near the location he has directed me to Find A Grave shows Cooper Cemetery #2. But it has zero memorials. And the satellite images only show trees. There is not a clearly discernable cemetery anywhere near the GPS coordinates for Cooper Cemetery #2.

Oh, yes. To add to the mix, the site is just off a road named, you guessed it, Cooper Rd.

This is all too coincidental. Confirming if there is a cemetery at the location of  Cooper Cemetery #2, and if there is, whether the graves there are actually those listed in Cooper Cemetery #1 is a Moral Imperative.

We chat a little longer and he offers to meet up with me some time and take me to where this second cemetery is.

Like I am going to wait long to investigate!

Is that enough backstory and setup for ya?

Fast forward a couple of days and where am I? Yup out in the fecking cold trying to locate this mysterious and mythical Cooper Cemetery #2. We roll up on the location I was given.

No cemetery where I was told it would be. Naturally. We scout the area around where David (remember the phone call?) directed me and can see nothing. There have been some heavy rains over the previous few days so there is as much mud as anything else around. You see, Cooper Rd is unpaved (gravel only) and the logging road is little more than two ruts in the ground. Two ruts that are filled with water turning the red clay into an evil substance that is both slicker than grease and as sticky as any glue. And it will stain all forms of clothing known to modern science.

Caution is the order of the day. Good thing we dressed appropriately (i.e. grubby clothes and mud shoes) and the car has mud mats.

The new plan is to explore up the logging road and see if the cemetery is somewhere past the tree line and hidden from the main road. Two dogs from one of the nearby houses (thankfully very friendly dogs) decide to join us. Unfortunately they are jumpy. And splashing in the mud. Great. One looks like a cross between a Burmese and a Lab. Given a saddle this dog could give rides to small children! Guess which dog thinks it great fun to run up from behind you and slam into your legs. 

This is going to be an interesting and challenging excursion.

We tramp up the logging road about 40 or 50 yards. The trees to either side a relatively thin giving a good view some 50-75 feet each way. No cemetery visible. At this point we hit the ubiquitous "Private Property Posted No Trespassing" signs and the locked chain across the road.

I try to not trespass. Especially when it is just TW and myself. So we make our exit back to the car and make one more look around the extended area before leaving. Just as we are about to head for the barn a vehicle approaches us from the opposite direction.

At this point I need to paint a better picture. The road we are on, Cooper Rd, runs East-West and North-South. Precisely where the logging road sits Cooper Rd makes a 90 degree turn. Not a curve or bend, mind you. A hard turn. The two sections are literally perpendicular to each other. It would not be surprising if the two parts were given separate names. If you are travelling East on Cooper Rd then the logging road continues East at the same point where Cooper Rd itself turns North.

At this intersection sit three residences. One on the South side directly on the intersection. The other two face each other a few yards from the turn on the West and East sides of Cooper Rd as it runs North-South.

We are pointing South about to turn West on Cooper Rd when this vehicle approaches us from the West. As Cooper Rd and thus the turn are a little narrow, I pause and wait for him to pass. 

But he doesn't pass. He stops along side of us. Not exactly a shocking thing. If you have spent any time in the rural South then you know it is almost a social obligation to check with any stopped vehicle - especially if you can't immediately associate it with anyone local - and inquire if they are having trouble and need help. If nothing else it is a chance to chat and find out who the interloper is!

We roll down our windows and he asks if we are having trouble. Honor has been satisfied. I explain that we are not having trouble but are looking for an old cemetery that is supposed to be around there.

"Oh. That's just over there.", he says while pointing over his shoulder in the general area of the logging road. 

I explain that we had looked there as far as the No Trespassing signs and could not see it. And that I did not want to piss anyone off by ignoring their signs.

"Don't worry about those signs. That's my land. The cemetery is about 50 yards past the chain, just on the left of the road. Can't miss it." Famous last words! He goes on to share that there used to be someone who came and cleaned it up from time to time, but they haven't been back for several years.

The pieces fit too perfectly. This has to be the place David directed me to! We thank the gentleman, park, and head back up the muddy logging road.

And here come the dogs again. Great.

We get to the area he directed us to and ... and ... YES! Headstones! Houston, we have a cemetery!

First order of business is to check the Cooper Cemetery #1 graves and see if these are those.

THEY ARE! Hot damn and Double Halleluiah! There are not two cemeteries, just bad data propagated by lazy people....

This is one of those things that drives me crazy. I can understand minor errors. But putting graves in a non-existent cemetery over a mile distant? Graves that you stood next to and took photos of? No excuses. Time for the Special Hell again.

And then it hits me that this means I have more work. I have to submit an update to Find A Grave to merge the two cemeteries and correct the details. Damn. I put that thought aside and set about auditing the cemetery.

Good thing I did. I located two more marked infant graves that have never been recorded before.

But maddeningly there is one memorial I cannot locate. Lafayette B Patton. There is a photo of the headstone in Find A Grave, but I cannot find a trace of it in the cemetery (which is only about 1,500 sqft, possibly not even that large). I search in logical places in the event it has fallen over and been covered with debris in the intervening years, but nothing. I find his daughter, Mary Stephens, headstone. But not his. 

Looks like a return trip in the spring is required. We can remove the growing saplings and brush, and do a proper search for Lafayette's marker. In the meantime I am not above asking the person who created the memorial or uploaded the photo if they remember where the grave is in relation to the cemetery overall and any other graves in particular.

Aside from Lafayette we GPS tag all the markers, take a few photos for ourselves, lay plans for the return trek, and, as there is daylight remaining and there is another nearby site I would like to check out, we depart.

The day's saga continues at Paul and Lester Cemetery.

Epilogue: 

Find A Grave is now corrected. If you want to see the updated, merged, corrected cemetery entry, it is now just Cooper Cemetery. I am trying to access the book published by the county historical society to see what they have for these graves/cemetery(ies) before I send them notice of my findings. Damned pandemic.

Something that puzzles me and I shall have to research further one day: William Griffeth and his father-in-law, Archer Norris, are (based on Find A Grave) the earliest two interments in the cemetery by decades. William died in 1830 and Archer in 1856. The next burial is a Cooper infant in 1875. I suspect that - if I can locate the property records - William or Archer originally owned the property and it was later acquired by the Coopers. Try as I have, I cannot link either William's or Archer's lines to a Cooper!

This is the grave that started the whole debacle. Once William Locklin Griffeth/Griffith

It may not be apparent in the image, but there is a name and data carved on the stone.

William has arguably the fanciest grave on the site!

The false tomb to the left of the image is William's father-in-law, Archer Norris. The stone in the foreground doesn't have any readable carving (if it ever had anything at all).

I begin to wonder if the tree predated William's burial or not. But it is interesting looking nonetheless.