James Montgomery and I have continued our cemetery mapping project. Last week we traveled up the right fork of Oakley to the Montgomery, Minix, and Rowe cemeteries. We found one marker with only F. Poe 1865-1912 which I later traced as being Francis Poe, son of Meredith Poe and Angeline Bradford. The 1910 Magoffin census lists the family as Francis Poe age 45 (b. 1865), wife Zylphie (Stone) age 44, mother of 10 children with 7 living. Some of their children were Green Poe b. 1888, Sherman Poe b. 1889, Bird Poe b. 1892, McKinley Poe b. 1896 and Fred Poe b. 1898. This is an abandoned cemetery and if there are any kinsmen who would put up a permanent marker, it would prevent it from being lost in the future.
Another old abandoned cemetery was found across from Gary Howard's home. It has markers with only initials: W. C. 1834-1895, P. C. d. 1917, F. C. ?, C. b. 1887, K. C., L. B. and about a dozen more graves. There are no monuments but this could be a Cole cemetery. In fact the 1870 Magoffin census has this possibility: William G. Cole age 46 (b. 1834), wife Purlina (Marshall) age 42 and children Johnson Cole age 14, Fady Cole age 12, Faming Cole age 10, Greene Cole b. 1862, Irvine Cole b. 1865, Viann Cole b. 1867, Bashy Cole b. 1872 and Mary Cole b. 1877.
The only clues I have is that William G. Cole matches the birth date on the only marker that lists a birth date and his wife and some of the children have the same initials. Let me hear from anyone who knows about this cemetery and I hope there is someone out there who will see that this cemetery is properly marked.
We found a couple more abandoned cemeteries on the head of the right fork of Carver. One was Jonce Cole b. 1884 d. 1953, Sarah, wife of J. G. Cole, b. 1867 d. 1912, Nancy Laney b. 1874 d. 1923, Joseph Watson b. 1842 d. 1920, wife Cynthia Watson b. 1841 d. 1904. This cemetery is about a hundred feet below the Buster Mullins Cemetery. His dates are b. 1931 d. 1996.
The other abandoned cemetery is a short distance upstream and has only one marker: Hetzell Collins b. 6 Sep 1932 d. 29 Dec 1947. There could be other graves.
The cemetery that is in the head of the left fork especially attracted my attention. When I came back to our library I found it had been copied in 1979 by Karen Sue Wireman Hensley who described it as being located on “Oakley Creek at the head of Carver Fork at the foot of the hill where there was once a wagon road leading over into Big Caney of Breathitt Co. KY”. There is a very large cedar tree standing “sentinel” over this cemetery which is in an abandoned condition although there are excellent marble tombstones and inscriptions. We found Thomas Williams b. 22 Feb 1839 (b. Franklin Co. VA) d. 3 Apr 1905, wife Bettie b. 1850 d. 1919, Willie Lovely b. 1877, wife of Si Lovely, Gypsy Lovely b. & d. 1899 (dau of Si Lovely), Olivia Lovely b. 1874 d. 1898 and a Bailey infant, dau of Martha Bailey. This Williams family shows in the 1880, 1900 and 1910 Magoffin census.
James and I spent Thursday and Friday evenings in the Half Mountain area and still lacked going to a couple of cemetery, the “Little” Jake Miller and the Abner Joseph cemeteries. We found three new cemeteries, the James O. White, the Arthur Joseph, and the Lewis Collins cemeteries.
I took time out on Saturday to help the DAV with their “Touch-Me-Not” fundraiser and mowed my back yard which had become an eyesore. Besides, I couldn't find my buddy, James Montgomery, turns out he had gone to Morehead for a Black Powder meeting. It rained on Sunday evening so I only visited a few family cemeteries that I feel responsible for. I bless the Good Samaritan (I suspect, designated by the city) who mowed the Bluegrass Cemetery which leaves me with three in Magoffin and about four in Paintsville.
I've seen quite a few chain link fences that have been smashed by dead pines during these trips. In fact, as James and I were about to enter one cemetery that had already been hit in three places, a dead pine came toppling down close to the fence, so be careful around these dead pines, especially in windy weather. The dead pines need to be cut or they will otherwise fall on a fence or smash an expensive monument.
I suppose you can tell that I've been to a good number of cemeteries these past several months. I would say I have visited over half the cemeteries in our county and several over the county lines. I believe I could say that nearly a third of these are in disrespectful or abandoned condition, yet written on a lot of the tombstones is “Gone but not forgotten”. I realize some of these cemeteries can't be visited except by foot and some descendants have moved or passed away but should a dozer shove a cemetery over the hill which has been and is being done, would be a catastrophic shock to kinsmen.
Now, Memorial Day is coming up soon and there will be thousands of dollars worth of flowers put on loved ones graves but I ask you, have you contributed toward the upkeep of that loved one's grave?
Various caring people copied about 850 cemeteries in 1977-78. I have since found about a hundred new or missed cemeteries, have taken the coordinates, updated the listings of several, taken pictures of over 400 veteran's footstones at my own expense, helped clean up several and feel better for having been able to do this as I take satisfaction in realizing I may somehow prevent a cemetery from being lost forever.
I suppose some of my desire of taking care of cemeteries comes from helping my mother prepare for “Decoration Day” each year. Some time before, she would gather up her brood of “youngins” and go up the hill, around the ridge then on to “our” Helton Cemetery for a clean up. On Decoration Day morning she would get up early, cut the flowers, wrap them in dampened newspaper and put them in bags to make them easier to carry. We would then repeat our earlier trip and decorate the graves. No “brought-on” flowers for Mom. Her motto was if you can't use real flowers; don't put any at all, even if in a couple of days the real flowers dried up.
On Monday afternoon I went into the Stinson area and met with Edison McCarty who took me to the cemeteries in that area. I thought I could find any or all the cemeteries there but after twenty-five years, things change so I was sort of “lost” all evening. Even the Jeremiah McCarty was on the “wrong” side of the hill “in my mind”.
My hat is off to the McCarty clan for the A-Plus condition of this large cemetery. They have encircled it with several thousand feet of chain link fence and there is a good graveled road to it.
The Carty Cemetery is also in excellent shape but the road to it is a little more complicated. I found the Will Craft Cemetery almost abandoned even though there is a road right beside it. I didn't find the Daniel Craft or the Bradley Arnett/Rowe or the Hoskins cemeteries so it will take another hunt.
Again I suggest if there are pines in or near your cemetery you may want to cut them before they died out as it appears all pines are destined to go the way of chestnut trees of yesteryear. If these pine trees fall on their own, they can possibly do a lot of damage.
I don't remember seeing a live chestnut tree in my young life which means they must have died out a hundred years ago (smile)…but I found one a couple of weeks ago near Raven Rocks that was about twenty feet high. I brought it to Toddie's attention as people in his age group can't identify them.
Let us hear from you by calling 606-349-1607, email
[email protected]
, write Magoffin County Historical Society, Box 222 , Salyersville , KY 41465 or visit us at 191 South Church Street adjacent to the Hall Community Center.
Magoffin County Historical
Society
This
article, written by Todd Preston, the president of the
Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the
May 18, 2006
issue of