Look Back: Some cemeteries in poor condition a century ago
Trending
The month of May, designated as Remember a Rural Cemetery Month in Wood County, continues.
Using again the works of local historian and genealogist John A. House, we'll follow his description of some of the early cemeteries he visited in the 1920s.
The Allen Graveyard.
Just above the line dividing the farms of William James and Samuel Allen, in the pioneer days, is a small burying ground. The ground around it has been cultivated so many years, and plowed so often that it has settled away, leaving the grave plots on a sort of elevation, which has grown over with brush, and the graves, when I saw them in October of 1922, were uncared for.
There was only one tombstone: Mary, wife of Samuel Allen, died Sept. 12, 1823, aged fifty-two years, four months. (Born April 21st 1771).
Samuel Allen had a tombstone, but it is not there now. He died in the spring of 1827. There may be other unmarked graves in the lot.
NOTE: Mary Allen's death in the fall of 1823 occurred in what would be known as the "sickly season." This season of sickness claimed many, many lives in the Ohio Valley, and possibly beyond. These many deaths included many of the early founders of Wood County, Parkersburg, Belpre and Marietta.
Bethel Cemetery (A Soldiers Graveyard) [Wirt County].
On top of the high hill by the horseshoe bend just outside Elizabeth stands the Bethel M.P. Church. It is a comparatively new structure.
On a sort of a knob back of the church is the burying ground, which also is of recent date. In spite of this it was badly grown up with weeds, brush and huckleberry bushes.
Down next to the road I noticed four graves of soldiers: George Morris -- Co. I, 6th U.S. Cavalry; Monroe Morris - Co. G, U.S. Calvary; James Bagous - Co. E, 12th W.Va. Inf., and Henry D. Smith - Co. D, 35th Pa. Inf. The soldiers' graves had no dates.
On the top of the hill, in a little plot apparently reserved by the donor of the ground, with a monument for two graves, was: Williams, Andy Ellis, 1851-1921, and Mary Alma, 1847-1913.
Flinn Graveyard.
One clear, bright day in mid-autumn, I visited the old Flinn graveyard, on Pond Creek. It was the 12th of October [probably 1926], and the hills aflame with the different shades of crimson, pine and yellow of the leaves, contrasting harmoniously with the yet vivid green of some trees of branches.
The cemetery embraces a knoll lying by the creek bank, out in the bottom from the road, which here follows the foot of the hill on the right side of the stream.
This is one of the oldest graveyards in the Pond Creek section. The burial ground has been a sort of private enclosure for the Flinns of Middle Pond Creek, and the Cross family of Cavin Fork. But many others of the pioneer families, and many "outsiders" are residing inside its fence. The Levi Cline of my boyhood recollection, on Jerrie's Run, is buried here, but I failed to find anything to show where his grave was.
The surface of the cemetery is fairly level, and occupies all that is available of the top of the small section of land on which it is located.
Old Spencer Graveyard [in Vienna].
On the Interurban carline, at Bryn Mawr carstop, a road runs back long and straight, passing a gigantic wild cherry tree, four or five feet in diameter, which stands on a rise. Straight back about a quarter of a mile, on a parallel road coming to the paved road, at Vitrolite carstop, lies the -- [? ]or perhaps I should say, an -- [?] Old Spencer Graveyard.
This cemetery is more or less surrounded with houses, these fields being largely cut up into building lots. It was, when I visited it about 1920, a commons in the southeast corner of a block, uncared for and desolate.
I revisited the spot November 15th, 1926. It is still unkept and weeds growing, a commons for the pasturage of cows.
NOTE: It is believed that it was near this cemetery that the first Vienna swimming pool was built.
Rural Cemetery Month will conclude next week.
***
Bob Enoch is president of the Wood County Historical and Preservation Society. If you have comments or questions about Look Back items, please contact him at: roberteenoch@gmail.com, or by mail at WCHPS, PO Box 565, Parkersburg, WV 26102.