Over the weekend, the weather was nice enough to go out for
a drive to finally find the graves of Sugar Plum and Charmer's
great-great-great-great-great-grandparents. We had gone a few weeks ago but
were unable to find it, due to some changes the new owners of the farm had
made. But thanks to our cousin for his research and instructions, and
Granny and Papa for coming along, we were able to finally “meet” them.
Now, just a side note about myself… I LOVE cemeteries. I
love finding my direct ancestors graves. I love finding the graves of cousins
and families connected to my family through marriages, etc. I photograph every
grave I can and transcribe and upload photos to FindAGrave.com. I’m kind of an
addict. It’s just that I find this to be very important because so many young
folks have no idea where their ancestors are buried, much less who their
ancestors even were. Also, many of these old cemeteries are being lost to the
forests or being destroyed by farmers to make more land to farm, or even
destroyed (or moved) by towns to make room for buildings. Whatever the reasons, we’re forgetting
about them and as someone who loves history (especially family history), I try
to do what I can to help preserve it. Now, on with the story of our day.
Isn't she the cutest?!?:
We found the graves! To me, the most precious graves were of
these fine people:
Ichabod Moore was born on April 10, 1793 in Pitt County, NC
to William and Millicent (Jones) Moore. He died on May 1, 1857 in Pitt County,
NC and is buried on the land he farmed during his lifetime. The land also had belonged
to his father, William Moore. Ichabod was married to Elizabeth Jane Jones,
daughter of James and Martha Jones of Greene County, NC. They had about 9
children, 2 of which also have markers in this cemetery (a granddaughter is
also buried in the cemetery).
It was really neat to see these headstones, as I think they may be the some of the oldest I have found for my family here in North Carolina (the Stancill graves are also quite old).
Here is Sugar Plum reading each letter to Ichabod Moore’s name
on his headstone:
She's only 3, but I'm trying to get her interested about her family history at a young age.
The babies with their ggggg-grandfather:
The babies with their ggggg-grandparents (Elizabeth on the left, Ichabod on the right):
There are supposedly some slaves that were also buried on
the outskirts of the cemetery and had wooden markers, but those have recently
been destroyed and the area cleared out. I was able to find and photograph just
7 graves in the cemetery. For more on these graves, click here for the full cemetery. There are probably more
graves that have been lost to time and neglect.
After leaving this cemetery, we visited 5 more cemeteries
that we happened to spot as we were driving by. Of course I couldn’t leave
these behind, so out came the camera.
