Gaddy/Wykoff Section "Old" Paris Cemetery
also known as "Upper Section"

From this site in the section on "Old" Paris, Jennings County, Indiana -- The graveyard Samuel Graham bequeathed to the town of Paris was "an acre of land laid out in a square form" perched on the high south bank of Graham Creek as it flows in a southwestwardly course north of town. The northwest side of the graveyard slopes rather sharply down to the river--a lovely spot in October.
The graveyard lies about a quarter of a mile north of the former meeting house lots #35 and #36. Before 1837 while the church was still standing on these lots there would have been a lane connecting the church and the graveyard to be used for funerals. In March of 2007 Traca Gwaltney very kindly went and took pictures and transcribed stones in the Cemetery. There are other transcriptions on line some more complete because many stones are either gone or no longer readable. This is the section above a ravine which separates the Gaddy/Wykoff Cemetery from the Cave/Dixon Cemetery. Traca was going to take pictures of the Cave/Dixon Cemetery but access to that Cemetery is not allowed by the owner.

Your tombstone stands among the rest; neglected and alone.

The name and date are chisled out on polished, marbled stone.

It reaches out to all who care, it is to late to mourn.

You did not know that I exist, you died an I was born.

Yet each of us your cells are in, in flesh, in blood, in bone.

Our blood contracts and beats a pulse entirely not our own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled one hundred years ago,

Spreads out among the ones you left who would have loved you so.

I wonder if you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew,

That someday I would find this spot, and come to visit you