This contract was in the probate packet for my 4th great-grandfather, John Robertson.

What I find so interesting is the fact that they added an inscription for his son Hugh, who died during the Civil War and was buried somewhere near Jackson, Mississippi. (Still looking for where!)

I also find it interesting that this contract was made on April 30, 1879 – John died on February 26th, which means that it took a couple of months to get a headstone up.

Thankfully, it is fenced in and well-maintained. And the owners of the farm even met us out there to help us find it.  They were very nice and helpful!  They have many ancestors buried there also.  I love that so many of the families in this area have stuck around for over a hundred and fifty years.

John and Sophia {Talbot} Davidson arrived in Kansas in 1854 and were amongst the first settlers in Douglas County.  They moved on to neighboring Leavenworth County after a number of years, but were still buried here since some of their children died before them and were laid to rest here. Their great-granddaughter {my husband’s grandmother} is still living in the same county.

John C. Davidson born Mar 24, 1809  died Feb 11, 1869.

Sophia F. Davidson born Feb 18, 1819 died Sept 7 1888.

I believe that this is John’s mother Mary {Caffrey} Davidson.
Mary Davidson born 1767 died Jan 9, 1860.

And here are two of their children who died young.

James F. Davidson born Dec 23, 1843 died Mar 4, 1859.  Hail I. Davidson born Mar 19, 1848 died Apr 8, 1866.

The only other Agee gravestone I saw nearby was that of their daughter, Eva Agee Lindenmeyer (1879-1958).

This story actually begins almost exactly a year ago.

My entire family was squeezed into our overflowing 15-passenger van, on a 30-day trip from North Pole, Alaska to Savannah, Georgia. Besides making them stop at every National Park and battlefield on the 9,000 miles of our trip, I also made quite a few detours to do research at courthouses and cemeteries.

One of the cemeteries I wanted to find was the “Agee Cemetery”, in Woolwine, Virginia. The area is just a couple of miles off the Blue Ridge Parkway and from what I had been told, there were four gravestones down a trail off the side of the highway.

The road was windy and the forest thick.

I had a very vague idea of where the cemetery was located.

I didn’t need to do a lot of prior planning though, because I had my new wonder-toy, the iPhone in hand. It had a GPS, internet access, maps, and the email with the directions to the cemetery. What more could I need??

What I didn’t take into account was the fact that my iPhone wouldn’t have any signal or internet access in the mountains of Virginia. We were driving blind.  And I learned my lesson.

After going back and forth down “the Crooked Road” several times (it’s really called that – here’s the sign to prove it!),

stopping at some poor unsuspecting man’s house to ask for directions, and driving down a very narrow dirt road with signs saying “No Trespassing” “Private Property” and “Trespassers Will Be Shot”, we threw in the towel and headed down the Blue Ridge Parkway further to the Biltmore for some sightseeing.

Over this past year, the fact that I wasn’t able to find that cemetery had been nagging at me. I really wanted to find them.

After taking off from the NGS Conference in Charleston, I decided that I’d make a stop in Virginia. Because Virginia is on the way to Kansas, right?

This time around, I was armed with much more specific directions. I was also in a small SUV instead of a 15-passenger van. A little bit easier to maneuver around.

We still had a few things going against us though.

• It was Sunday morning and there weren’t very many people around (I did have the idea to stop by the local church to ask someone about the cemetery, but the parking lot was empty.  Hmm)
• Even though I had more specific directions, I still didn’t know exactly where I was going.
• It was POURING down rain and the graves were 3/8 of a mile off the road.  And I didn’t have an umbrella.  And there wasn’t a store in town.  See the rain, just waiting in those clouds??

But did I let any of this get me down?  Of course not!  I had gone out of my way to drive to this county and I wasn’t going to give up that easily.  I’m from Washington state anyway.  A little rain wasn’t going to discourage me.

My first stop (after passing the empty church parking lot) was the busiest place in town – the gas station/hang-out.  There, I asked the resident old-guy-on-a-bench if he knew where I could find the cemetery.  I am honestly not quite sure what he said to me.  His accent was so thick and he had so many teeth missing that I couldn’t understand.  I nodded a couple of times, thanked him, and tried to follow the directions I already had.

I found the small shoulder, where I was supposed to pull over on the side of the road.

I could see a bit of footbridge (which was mentioned in the directions).  I knew that I was on the right track.  Just at that moment, a pick-up truck pulled out of the nearby road.  I flagged it down and asked the man driving if he knew if there were some graves back there and if whoever owned the land would mind if I went back to take some pictures of them. He said that I should go down the road (which he had pulled out of) and turn into the first driveway.  The graves were near this man’s house.  Great! (or so I thought).

As I drove down the one-lane dirt road, I realized that it looked familiar.  And when I stopped at the first driveway, I found out why.  This was where all of the “No Trespassing” were!  I couldn’t decide what to do.

Just then, a nice older lady was passing by and I asked her if she knew who lived there.  She said that she thought that he was home and I should go and ask him about the graves.  I decided to gather the courage and go ring this man’s doorbell.

So, I turned the corner of the driveway (I couldn’t see the house before) and was faced with the fact that this man didn’t have a doorbell.  Or even a proper door for that matter.  What to do?  I got about 25 feet from the shack and yelled “hello” about 6 or 7 times and then hightailed it back to my truck when no one answered.  As I was pulling out of the driveway, I noticed that the outbuilding/barn that was there looked like it could have been standing when my ancestors lived in the area (over 100 years before).  I was tempted to take a picture of it, but my good manners kept me from doing it.

So, back to the side of the road where I started out.  The rain had stopped and I decided it was now or never.  Armed with my camera and my cell phone (which of course didn’t work, but for some strange reason it still made me feel better to have it), Ellie and started walking down the pathway.

We crossed the footbridge and the path quickly turned into an ATV trail.

A very muddy ATV trail.

But we weren’t giving up, right?

Except for one very un-cool moment, where I almost slipped and covered myself in this,

we made it up the path unscathed.  A little muddy, but no gunshots.

And that’s when we saw it.  It definitely wasn’t what I expected to find.

But you’ll have to wait until next Tombstone Tuesday to see what was down the long muddy path.

Would you have ventured down it?

John C. Davidson was my husband’s 3rd great-grandfather. He was born 24 Mar 1809 in Lynchburg, VA. He died 11 Feb 1869 in Kansas.

He is buried in the Ulrich Cemetery in Douglas County, KS (south of Lawrence). This cemetery is on a private farm. There are not many stones there and I’m hoping to do a tombstone census of it when I return to Kansas this May. I will definitely be taking a better picture of this stone!

Bonaventure Cemetery is very beautiful.  The interesting old gravestones and hanging Spanish moss make it different than most.

This particular gravestone, of a little girl named Grace Watson, touched me.

She was only 6 when she died on a pneumonia in 1889.  Her father was the manager of a big hotel and she was a favorite of many of the guests. When a sculptor named John Walz came to town, Grace’s father had this gravestone carved from a photograph of his little girl.

I guess it just gets me, because it’s not often that you can actually “see” the person as you’re walking through the cemetery. Have you ever come across a gravestone like this before?

Adam Potter and his wife Nancy, are my 5th great-grandparents.  They are buried in McDonald, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The other three women on the gravestone are their daughters.

I am descended through their daughter Juliette Potter, who married John Cavit and moved away from Pennsylvania – first to Iowa and then to South Dakota, where they died.

Brantly Stafford

DIED

on the 10. of the 10. Mo.

1876

AGED

71 Years

He is buried in Hubbel Hill Cemetery in Tonganoxie, Leavenworth County, Kansas.

On my first trek through the cemetery, I couldn’t seem to find my 3rd great-grandparents, John Henry and Margaret (Kuttenkuler) Becker. I knew that they were there. I even had a picture of their gravestone which I found online. I completely missed it though. I had a van full of kids that needed to use the restroom, so we took a short drive down the road for a pit stop. I talked my husband into driving back to the cemetery again so that I could find the stone. I was determined.

I managed to find it right away this time. I’m not sure how I missed it the first time through, because it wasn’t very hard to find.

John and Margaret were married in Tipton in 1858.  They were both born in Germany, like many other people in the area.

Here is a picture from their 50th Wedding Anniversary.  They are in the middle, surrounded by family.

We didn’t have much problem finding the small St. Andrew Catholic Cemetery just outside of town. It appears to have been the site of the first St. Andrew Catholic Church. I would have loved to have seen that.

It is a beautiful little cemetery.  I walked through most of it and was surprised at the number of people buried here with the last names I was looking for.  I could tell that many of the descendants had stayed in the area.  Also, the entire town must have been full of Germans!  There were row after row of German names.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will post many of the gravestones I found in this cemetery.

Here is one that is unrelated to me.  I thought that it was interesting though, because it was quite old.  I could make out that the person was born in 1785.

My husband’s Campbell and Baker ancestors lived in this area, and a few of them are buried here.

This is the grave of Catharine (Baker) Campbell.  She was the first wife of Rev. Joseph Campbell.  She died 22 Dec 1851 at the age of 33 yrs, 11 months, and  6 days. leaving behind 4 young children.

How tragic.  It really hits home for me, because I’m about the same age and have 5 small children.  I can’t imagine not being there to see them grow up.

Joseph Campbell remarried to another Catherine – Catherine Palmer and they also had 4 children together.

They moved on to Kansas, so Joseph is not buried here in this cemetery along with her.

Here is the church:

He would have been my husband’s great uncle.

He is buried in Cold Spring Cemetery in Lockport, Niagara, New York.

George Spencer and his wife, Rosanna V. Leonard.

\\

James H. Leonard and his wife, Mary Van Tassel.

I am continuing my post this week.

I had been in contact with a very nice woman who did a look-up in the church records for me.  She confirmed that my 4th great-grandmother, Sophia (Ross) Pottgen was buried in Greenwood Cemetery.  It also listed a Frederick as being a relative of hers.  Her father was Frederick Ross, so I assumed that it was him.  I was right.

I would never have found this gravestone had I not known what I was looking for.  It was really hard to read.  Not only was the stone worn off, but there were bumps on it also.  It made it very hard to decipher.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get any dates off of it.

The stone was very close to the Thornton plot (on the right).

You can tell the cemetery is in the St. Louis area – notice the Budweiser building and trucks next door.

On my recent cross-continent trip, I managed to stop in Bedford, Virginia.

Did you know that they are home to the National D-Day Memorial? Their town lost more men per capita than any other on D-day.

I didn’t get  a chance to actually go and see the memorial, because I had one precious day to hit 3 neighboring Virginia counties.

I would have had an extra day, but we happened to arrive in the area on a Thursday night and we weren’t able to stay through Monday.  That gave me one day to hit the courthouses and the genealogy library before they were closed for the weekend.  I had to work fast.

My poor husband was in the van with my 5 not-so-happy kids.  We were nearing the end of our journey and they weren’t very excited about being strapped in anymore.  They were especially not excited about sitting outside of the Bedford County Courthouse for 2 1/2 hours.

I managed to slip across the street to the genealogy library for a few minutes after having made a stack of copies from the will books at the courthouse.  I did a quick search through the tombstone census for the county and I was able to find the gravestones of my 6th great grandparents – or rather their lack of gravestones.

The tombstone census stated the following about the cemetery that they were buried in (which is near Moneta,VA in Bedford county):

“This cemetery has been bulldozed over but Mr. Nance gave us the following names of people who are buried there: Somon Hancock, Jane Flournoy Hancock, Edward Hancock,  Jane Nichols Hancock, Christopher Hancock, Simon Hancock, and others (slaves).

Evidence of a cemetery having been present just SE of a tree and a large flint rock and W of the barn and E of the old home site.  An old iron post has worked its way to the surface of the pasture in this area.  There are several sunken areas.”

The informant was a Mr. Ray Nance on Jan. 30, 1992.

I am elated to have found where their last resting place is.

It saddens me though to know that they no longer have visible markers of their burial sites.

It makes me wonder if  there is something I can do about it.

Maybe I could find other descendants and see about getting permission from whoever currently owns the land to put up a single gravestone in the vicinity of where they were buried?  I have no idea what the cost would be for a stone, but since Simon died in 1791, my guess is that he has a large number of descendants.

Any ideas?  Have any of you done this before?

Buried in Tonganoxie, Kansas.  Hannah was his 2nd wife.

First with my hives.  Yuck.

Then we decided to hop in the van and take a little drive.  We went from Fairbanks to Valdez to Anchorage to Denali and back to Fairbanks again.  Over 1,000 miles. In 2 days.  It was a gorgeous drive with beautiful scenery.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many mountains in my life.  Everywhere we turned, there were more. Here is Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) which is impressively humongous.

And do you know what?  I still managed to get some genealogy done.  Because I’m sneaky like that.

While we were in Anchorage, we stopped at Ft. Richardson to get something at the PX.

And I managed to talk my husband into stopping at the National Cemetery on Post.  I knew that my mom’s Uncle “Red” Walden Bergman was buried there, along with his wife June.  He was stationed up here while he was in the Army and he ended up staying. This is the only picture that I have of him.  I never knew him, because he died when I was 2.

I was worried that it was going to be hard to find the gravestone, but I was pleasantly surprised.

They had a book outside, full of all the names of the people buried there, with sections and grave numbers listed.  If only every cemetery was as organized!

Here is his gravestone: