Corley-Poe Cemetery

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Find-A-Grave

After an almost ten-year hiatus, Sherry and I decided to try fulfilling some local Find-A-Grave (FG) photo requests. We had moved to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia several years ago, and had not done much with FG since the move.

The Flint Hill area looked interesting, so we focused our efforts there. One cemetery, with 7 requests outstanding, was Corley-Poe.  Using the FG mobile app, it shows up at the center of town, next to the fire station. There's a nice county fair (or some kind of fair) setup there, but no cemetery. So on our first trip we went to the Flint Hill Methodist Cemetery, behind the Flint Hill UMC, and also right in the middle of town. There were two outstanding requests there, and fortunately we found both markers pretty easily. The cemetery is well-kept and was recently mowed.

Further investigation of Corley-Poe showed that FG did not have GPS information. Since the location was "Flint Hill", the app just picked the geographical center of Flint Hill, or something like that. There were 17 memorials attributed to the cemetery in FG, only two had photos, and there were no cemetery photos.  The two photos available did not have any GPS tagging.

Our next step at this point is a Google search, but that didn't yield anything for Corley-Poe except links back to FG.

Ancestry

Sometimes it is helpful to "visualize" the FG information and try to sort out family connections in Ancestry. So we setup a Corley-Poe tree, based around John Madison Poe. We quickly found a marriage record for his marriage to his first wife, Elizabeth Jane Corley, and then a whole bunch of hints popped up from other Ancestry contributors.

This gave us a couple of photos of the graveyard, including one that showed the RHS marker shown below.

Rappahannock Historical Society

The RHS has a website, with posted office hours and a physical location in Washington, Virginia (the county seat). They look to have some very good family history resources. And they have a link for a Cemetery Project, but the link is invalid.

After much more Google searching, Sherry found a document and sent it to me. I opened it up and searched for Corley and Poe with no luck, and left it at that. After a couple more days, I did a search for "Rappahannock Cemeteries" which led to a page on the Rappahannock County site: https://www.rappahannockcountyva.gov/news_detail_T31_R233.php, offering a compilation of historic properties.  Following the link gives the same document Sherry sent me, so I had another look. Turns out it is scanned but not OCR'd (converted to text) so searching the text doesn't work. So I read through all the Homes With Known Cemeteries, the Churches, and the Public and Affiliated Cemeteries without luck. But shortly into the Other Cemeteries, I struck gold. Or at least a postal address.  22 Old Vineyard Lane, Flint Hill.

Corley-Poe Cemetery

Once we saw the RHS marker and a couple other photos from Ancestry, we had done a lot of driving around Flint Hill, looking for a nice stone fence with a small gate. Flint Hill has a LOT of stone fences. With an actual address, we went back, knowing we were likely the cemetery was on private property and we would have to get permission from the landowner.

When we arrived at the address, we were greeted by three friendly dogs, coming straight up to the car. I got out and let them sniff, and the homeowner came out and greeted us. I explained that we were looking for the cemetery, and introduced us, and they gave us permission to visit the cemetery.

We had a great time nosing around, taking pictures, and even signing the guestbook. At the entrance, there's a stone pillar with a Pelican case hanging from it, nicely labeled "Poe-Corley Cemetery Visitors". The case contains a couple guestbooks and pens, well padded and secure against the weather.

The burials here are from the 19th and early 20th centuries, with the latest one around 1933. All the grave markers are hand-carved field stones, so much of the carved information has worn away. But we were able to get enough off four of the markers to match them up with FG burial records, and fulfill two photo requests!

Ellison Ridge Road

Summers County, Ellison Ridge, and the Lillys

As we've shared before, when we have spare time we like to go looking for cemeteries. To add a specific tangible goal, we like to review the Find-A-Grave photo requests and pick out a hopeful target cemetery. Then we do some research on it (a little "digging" you might say) and then we go out and try to locate the cemetery and the requested grave markers.

David

We don't always find what we are looking for, but we always enjoy looking.

Recently, we decided to go looking for a Lilly Family Cemetery in Summers County. If you are from southern WV, you might realize how daunting that is.  Lilly is the most common surname in our area, far ahead of Smith and Jones and the rest. And from what I can tell the heart of Lilly country is around Jumping Branch and Nimitz in Summers County. Find-A-Grave lists a bunch of cemeteries in this area, most of them with "Lilly Family" in the name, and most of them with less than a hundred graves.

In other words, there are a bunch of Lillys, and many many small family cemeteries. A big task, indeed.

As a start, we made a list, and found that Find-A-Grave lists 18 cemeteries in Summers County all starting with the name Lilly. Now some may be duplicates, but still that's a bunch. So we noted as many directions and coordinates and descriptions as we could find and tried to organize them.

We found that four or five of the cemeteries seemed to be on Ellison Ridge Road. So we plotted out a map, and headed out to find them all. And as a specific goal, we wanted to find Clarice Lilly's grave, which was a Find-A-Grave request from our friend Ralph.

Before tackling Ellison Ridge, we made two other stops. First, we drove out Will Dodd Road in Jumping Branch, looking for a cemetery that was reported to be there, but we struck out. Then we went to Lilly-Crews, a large cemetery in Nimitz. This one is easy to find, well kept, and fairly large. Interestingly, it contains a number of graves that were relocated from a cemetery near the town of Lilly as the Bluestone Dam was being constructed. The old cemetery was flooded by what is now Bluestone Lake.

Finally, we headed out Ellison Ridge. We had rough directions to two cemeteries - the first was about 1.5 miles along on the left at the top of a hill. After we had gone about 3/4 mile, we saw chain-link fencing near an old burned-out sawmill, and visited the small cemeteries there. There were actually two fenced areas, joined together, with one smaller and one more dominant.

When we continued down Ellison Ridge we were looking for a cemetery up the hill from an old schoolhouse. We found this building here, and a cemetery above it, and were sure we had found it.

Just as at the other site, we found two separately fenced areas. We were excited, but were puzzled that we still couldn't find Clarice Lilly's marker. Nonetheless we photographed the lot, and decided it was time to be done for the day.

When we got home and looked carefully at our pictures and mapping, we realized that we had not found a Lilly Cemetery at all. The first two we found were the small Meader/Odie Cemetery and it's larger neighbor just named Meador Cemetery.

The two fenced areas near the "schoolhouse" turned out to be the Fall Rock Cemetery. Not only that, but all three cemeteries were already completely documented in Find-A-Grave. So we hadn't fulfilled a single photo request.

Finding Life in a Cemetery

Sherry

While "working" a cemetery...digitizing headstones, uploading photo requests to Find-A-Grave. I find myself captivated by the life within the cemetery.  As David systematically digitizes headstones, I break off and begin photographing the beauty.

I explore the legends and spirituality behind the life I find in the cemetery.  Here are some of the photographs:

Bee Legend of the Appalachian Mountains

copyright, Slowmoto Graphics

In parts of the Appalachian mountains, there is a legend about bees surrounding a death in the family. Whenever someone dies, the family must whisper the information to the bees before the sunrise of the next day. The bees are the messengers of the gods and fly into the heavens and notify the Gods of the death.

If the family doesn't relay the information to the bees, the family living under the same roof of the deceased will perish.  In Ireland the folklore includes keeping the Gods informed of human events and inviting the bees to attend the funeral or turning the hives toward the path of the coffin's route. http://irishhedgerows.weebly.com

Tell the Bees

By Sarah Lindsay

Tell the bees. They require news of the house;

they must know, lest they sicken

from the gap between their ignorance and our grief.

Speak in a whisper. Tie a black swatch

to a stick and attach the stick to their hive.

From the fortress of casseroles and desserts

built in the kitchen these past few weeks

as though hunger were the enemy, remove

a slice of cake and lay it where they can

slowly draw it in, making a mournful sound.

copyright, Slowmoto Graphics

Butterfly Soul

In Ireland, there is a saying:  “Butterflies are souls of the dead waiting to pass through purgatory.” A butterfly begins its' life as a caterpillar then metamorphoses into a butterfly. The butterfly symbolizes resurrection and represents the soul leaving the body. https://mysendoff.com 

In Ancient Greek, the word butterfly is known as the psyche, which means soul.  The butterfly's soul is touched by divine love, but which, by reason of the mistakes made, must undergo some tribulations before having access to happy immortality. http://www.insects.org/

copyright, Slowmoto Graphics

Legend of the Butterfly

According to an American Indian Legend, if anyone desires a wish to come true they must first capture a butterfly and whisper that wish to it.  Since a butterfly can make no sound, the butterfly cannot reveal the wish to anyone but the Great Spirit who hears and sees all.
In gratitude for giving the beautiful butterfly its freedom, the Great Spirit always grants the wish. So, according to legend, by making a wish and giving the butterfly its freedom, the wish will be taken
to the heavens and be granted."  http://www.swallowtailfarms.com

I read many poems about butterflies and the afterlife before finding this poem:

  I AM NOT THERE

Do not stand by my grave and weep

For I am not there.

I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am diamonds that glint on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning hush

I am the swift uplifting rush of butterflies in joyous flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry.

I am not there.  I did not die.

Author Unknown

Samuel Carter Cemetery - Part I

Location, Location, Location

Sherry unearthed twelve to fourteen Find-A-Grave photo requests for a "Dempsey Cemetery" which had accumulated multiple cemetery entries, each with the same name but different locations. Tangled among the requests was rhetoric about the exact location of the cemetery, members debating between Raleigh County and Fayette County as the most likely site. After reviewing the burial data and list of possible interments, a Fayette County location seemed reasonable, even with one entry proclaiming a Raleigh County burial.  The mystery heightened and the search for the "Dempsey Cemetery" began.

She found a note in Rootsweb which says:

Samuel Carter Cemetery on Dempsey Branch (Laurel Creek) behind Doggett Chapel, Fayette County, West Virginia

The ones we found in the database were:

• Carter Cemetery in Fayette County,
• Dempsey Cemetery in Raleigh County, and 
• Dempsey Cemetery in Fayette County.

One death certificate included in the search stated "Epperly Cemetery", which after a documentation review hinted to Kanawha County being a more likely spot.

We found coordinates for Doggett Chapel on an old list of churches:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/38°03'12.4"N+81°09'47.4"W/
and at least according to Google maps, the community of Dempsey is centered right across the street.

So our updated directions to the chapel are:

Take US-19 (N) to Fayetteville. Turn left on Laurel Creek Rd, Route 8. Go about 4 miles. Right where Rt 8 takes 110 degree right, stay straight on Dempsey Rd/Wriston Rd/Rt 81. The church should be 50 feet on left, and the cemetery hopefully nearby.

We found an opportunity to explore the whereabouts based on the data found.   Without error, we drove to the Doggett Chapel UMC, however when we scanned the area around the church  the cemetery wasn't in sight. We talked with a neighbor, and after securing his attention and letting him calm his guard dog, he said it was about 250 yards up a rutted road, but we couldn't get there in our truck.

Pinpointing the cemetery looked to be more involved than the original indication that the cemetery was behind the church.  We were in for a mountainous hike and would need a full day commitment.

Take Two

We set out Sunday to try again. The boys were reluctant to go until we explained the part about a hike in the woods. Our plan was to park at the bottom of the washed-out road, near the church, and walk up the 300 yards or so to the cemetery. Samuel asked how long it would take, and I estimated 5 minutes to get there.

At the 5 minute point, we got to a house, the one of which we had been told. One gentleman was outside with his dogs, and we talked to him. He said the cemetery was up at the end of the road. When we looked where he was pointing, we could see that the road we'd walked up kept on going, sort of, up the hill. At this point it was less of an old washed-out road and more of a couple ruts through the woods.

Road to Carter Cemetery

We went on a couple hundred more yards and came to a fence line and a gate, with pastureland on the other side. This was a venerable pasture, with large bushes and trees grown up in it, and out of sight from any houses or roads. And posted with No Trespassing signs we could not miss.

Feeling like America's Most Wanted, we climbed over the gate and kept following the road. It went up the west side of the pasture along the fence, and just kept gradually climbing up the hill. We didn't see any farm animals, but there was plenty of evidence of them on the path.

Sherry spied a likely spot for a cemetery off to the left of the trail, so she and Joseph went to investigate while Samuel and I continued following the fence line.

Sam and I passed a couple of gates in the fence on our right, and when the road started to go downhill a bit (in our experience, rarely are WV family cemeteries located in a valley), we thought we needed to return to the last gate we had passed, which had a promise of a short distance up to the summit.  So we scaled another gate, and followed what was now a deer trail through the brambles.

Sherry and Joe were unsuccessful in their pursuit and began backtracking. They report that they heard a bear knock over a rotted tree below them, and they hightailed it up the trail. They spotted the muddy footsteps on the gate that we scaled when we detoured off the main trail, so they were able to follow behind.

The trail widened back into a rutted track when it got to the trees, and we kept going with a little more confidence. We could see that some force of nature had felled some mighty big trees, and we had to scramble under one that blocked the path. Just after we crossed that obstacle, though, we saw a small clearing and some gravestones.  Success!

Continued in part II ...

Samuel Carter Cemetery - Part II

Combing Through The Trees

We were so relieved to actually find a cemetery after hiking what seemed like miles up the hill, we didn't even worry that it looked like only a few grave sites. The small clearing was very pretty anyway, and we could declare a victory. So we set out to photograph the stones.

Copyright 2014 Slowmoto Graphics

As we got up into the clearing more, we saw some huge stone pillars back in the trees. They looked like part of a gateway almost. A little surreal, like a scene from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. (Or at least the way I pictured the scenes reading the book as a child)  Joseph related the larger monuments to chess pieces, a bishop and a rook.

We started towards the pillars, and noticed a few more grave stones on the way. Samuel scrambled around between the pillars and found the inscriptions, which of course proved them to be massive monuments.

When we got through those stones, we found marker after marker stretching back into the woods. The trees and bushes had grown up so much, it was a jungle. There were tree branches down, massive grape vines, brier bushes, and whole trees down. It was a riot of vegetation, old and new.

It felt like a Harrison Ford movie. Sherry might change our blog name to "Indiana Stones" or something after this experience. What fun it was!

Copyright 2014 Slowmoto Graphics

We ended up finding about 30 some grave markers. More than that, really, as some were face down, or covered with fallen trees too big to shift. But amazingly most of the ones we could actually see the front of were legible.

There was a little fenced-in section you can see here. I think this one had the Coleman monument.

There was a section with Samuel Carter's grave. He has two markers - an earlier one and one he shares with his wife.

We also found two markers for Nannie Wood, one with her husband Caleb. We found Nutters, Skaggs, Mosleys, lots of Carters and Eatons, Colemans, Beckelhimers, an Akers, an Adkinson, a Tincher and an Amick.

We knew there were going to be some interesting stories when we started researching these people. But little did we know how much we would find.

Continued soon...

Smith's Cemetery

So about a year ago we were searching hard for a Smith's Cemetery in Fayette County. Sherry had found a record that her grandmother had a baby that died young and was buried in a Smith Cemetery in Oak Hill.

Finding Smith's

We found a death certificate that mentioned a burial in Smith Cem in Oak Hill. Tyree Funeral Home was listed as the Undertaker. They are still in business, so we called their Oak Hill office and asked about the cemetery. They gave us directions that were to go to Greentown Road, go around the big curve and find a house on the left at the top of a hill.

We drove out Greentown Road and didn't see it on the first pass, so we stopped and asked a family that was working in the yard. They said we had to go back down the road to the nice brick house, now on the right side, and the cemetery was up on the hill above the house. We still weren't quite sure where it was but we spotted it after we passed and just had to turn around and come back.

This seems to be the way we find cemeteries. We get a rough idea of where it is and what we're looking for, go to the area and have to ask for help. So far we've always found helpful people - Sherry is excellent at spotting the perfect person to help with directions.

Mapping and Photos

We found a small-ish cemetery with about 50 interments, spread out over the top of a hill, with a big oak tree in the middle. The oldest graves seemed to be closest to the house, on the east side of the hill. Then there were a bunch of graves in the middle near the tree, and a few along the treeline to the west and north. We noticed that there were a couple different family names (Smith, Olds, Evans, Hamilton, Newton, Plumley, Painter), and five or six military graves.

We knew the cemetery probably wasn't in Find-A-Grave at all, so we photographed every grave we could find. We were mostly looking for a baby's grave from 1939, and we didn't find anything marked that way. We did find a couple graves near the tree that weren't marked and seemed to be for infants, so we think that our Phillis has a home here.

It was a beautiful fall day and the leaves were starting to change. Sherry found an old wood pile, and what looked like the old sign for the cemetery lying there, so we set it up and took a picture.

Research

Some of the names interested me - Odgen instead of Ogden, Myrtha, Nellie Painter. I decided to put them in a separate Ancestry tree while Sherry was working on her own family.

These are some of the relationships we found between the families:

• Hazel Plumley married Lana Smith in 1925.
• John Wise Olds married Rosa Zetta Smith in 
• Lottie Ann Elsie Evans married Jess Willard Olds in 1950.
• Dolly Mattie Evans  married George F. Olds in 1950. Dolly & Lottie were sisters and Jess and George were brothers.
• Harmon Smith married Verlina Hamilton, daughter of Samuel and Luella, in 1931.
• A family of Painters lived next door to Harmon Smith's family 

Of course it turned out that Harmon Smith is in Sherry's family tree.

Links

http://www.findagrave.com/ (Smith's Cemetery)

http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/62552020/

Valley View Cemetery

This is a medium-sized cemetery, about 250 interments. It's on a nicely kept hillside in the middle of Summers County. Seriously the middle - if you bring up Summers County on Google Maps and keep zooming in, you will find it. But I will save you the trouble, here it is: 37.660327, -80.806826

Finding It

This one didn't have map coordinates in Find-A-Grave, but it did have a picture of the church nearby. And the obituaries I saw all mentioned "Powley's Creek". So we found Powleys Creek Road and located the church and cemetery on Google Earth and planned our trip.

The drive down to Hinton and out along the Greenbrier is very nice. Both our families used to travel it pretty often, since when I was growing up (and Sherry was a baby) it was the main route to the East until you could connect up to I-64 at Sam Black Church or Alta.

As we approached the start of Powley's Creek Road, Sherry said to pay attention to the tunnel. You couldn't see the tunnel until you were right on it, and I have no idea how she knew it was there, but we found it and made the turn up the road. The tunnel is about 60 feet long, and Sherry got some nice pictures from the inside.

We continued up the road and found the church and the cemetery right where we expected. The scenic beauty of the place is breathtaking.

Photographing

We started our usual process. We had thirteen photo requests to look for, and since the cemetery was only about 40% photographed, we decided to get as many photos as we could. Taking the photos is pretty easy, especially for upright stones in good condition.

Sherry went and chatted with a man who was clearing a downed tree from the field. He said his friend took care of keeping the cemetery mowed, which we appreciated.

We stopped off at Kirks on the way home for ice cream and a snack. The boys enjoy watching the ducks swim on the river.

Links

Here's the Find-A-Grave page: http://www.findagrave.com/ (Valley View Cemetery)

Reed Cemetery

Reed Cemetery

Far down the C&O Dam Road in Daniels is the well-maintained Reed (or maybe Reed/Smith) Cemetery. It is a small cemetery (about 30 interments) with 3 family names - Reed, Smith and Lilly. The reports are that Dr. James used to own the land, and lived in a 2-story farmhouse below the cemetery. The farmhouse is gone now, but the view from the cemetery is serene and beautiful.

Finding the place

We received photo requests for the cemetery (from Ralph), but not a specific location. Ralph found death certificates of his family that listed the funeral home. I emailed to request the cemetery's location, and they replied timely with the following:

The information we have on Reed Cemetery is that it is located off C & O Dam Road in Daniels, WV, near the Boy Scouts Camp.  Before you get to the camp, turn back to the left and go about a quarter mile, turn beside Dr. James' two-story farmhouse on the right.  Cemetery sits upon the hill behind the farm.  Unfortunately, there is no other direction or contact information on file.    Good luck!

We got to the scout camp easily enough, I (David) remembered it from my scouting days. We hunted among the houses around there for a while without luck. I was about to give up, but Sherry wanted to try going past the scout camp, and I have learned to trust her intuition. We went another mile or so to where you cross the turnpike to stay on the C&O Dam Road.

At that point, Sherry spied a group of folks preparing to take their BBQ/Gyro wagons to a fair. We were directed to the head of the group with our questions. He immediately recognized the description of his neighbor's property. He remembered a pond he use to fish near the cemetery, and the occasion that his cows wandered onto the his neighbor's field, and Dr. James kindly assisted him in herding the cows home. He pointed us further down C & O Dam Road away from the Boy Scout Camp. He said there use to be a bird sanctuary sign. How fortunate we were to approach the neighbor that actually had interactions with Dr. James and knew of the cemetery. Later we realized the cemetery was well inside the property and not view-able from the main road and without his assistance.

We didn't find the bird sanctuary, but we did eventually figure out that Belwood Lane was the correct turnoff.  After maneuvering the dirt lane over a half mile, I saw the cemetery, or rather, I saw a flag post and a fenced area at the top of a knoll and knew we found our cemetery!  We went on to the end of the road and talked to a neighbor, seeking permission to explore the cemetery. Without hesitation, he directed us to a nice, well-maintained path up to the top.

We were so excited to find the site, we parked at the bottom of the field and walked up through the tall grass full of  purple blooming wildflowers. When we arrived at the top, we saw the gate was on the other side.  We followed fence having to crawl under some rusted old strands of barbed wire that connected perpendicularly to the outside of the cemetery's fence. We both chuckled and said, "cow diversion tactic." As we pulled brown thorny "hitchhikers" from our clothes, we noted the well maintained path that we could easily navigate in our little Honda.  However, we enjoyed following the deer trail from the pond covered in vegetation to the flag seen at the top of a hill beaconing the position of the cemetery.

Photographing

We started our normal process - I go through the place systematically while Sherry pinpoints the whereabouts of any photo requests and noting possible relationships.  She also likes to take artistic photos of the surrounding scenery and plant life with a whimsical eye. We also note any family buried away from the family in a corner or outside a fence, which is a great clue to the family history. Also, we are careful not to post a picture or information on a family member without a death date.  With family cemeteries we like to digitally record all the headstones.  Later we complete an internet and vital statistics search to create a family tree.  We post the family tree as a public tree on Ancestry.com. We use a camera with GPS so that the photos are pinpointed to a location.

Inevitably we find head stones that are unreadable.  Sherry will urge me to help her read the eroded, lichen-covered words to try to preserve the information.  If unsuccessful, we audio record what is readable and take a digital picture. Occasionally someone will know who was buried there. Once we return home we try to elicit the information from the pictures using digital enhancement then confirmation with a death certificate, vital record, etc.

Unlabeled Graves

This cemetery has seven or eight graves with markers but no labeling. If you know who these graves might belong to, please contact us.

Links

If you want to see the Find-A-Grave records for this cemetery, here is the link:

http://www.findagrave.com/ (Reed Cemetery)

We setup a public tree on Ancestry for the Reed family, which is listed as "Reed Cemetery Tree". From a quick search on Elias Reed, it looks like there are a bunch of other public trees that will tie into it.