Sunday ~ Old Stone Church Cemetery

  I went to a new church this morning, and after the service, I took advantage of the fact that it was close to the Old Stone Church Cemetery to explore.

  But first I visited the African American cemetery (aka the Dick Pointer Cemetery) across the street from it.  It's so odd to me that there would be a separate cemetery for people of color, but I have to remind myself that racial segregation "ended" (legally, anyway) just within my generation ~ two years after I was born.

  I think the cemetery was renamed in 1982 when there was a dedication for Dick Pointer's grave, and maybe also when the larger stone monument was put up.  Both cemeteries were originally granted in 1850 to expand a town cemetery and "designated a portion of the conveyed land as a "burial place for Whites" and a portion to be used as a burial place for "Africans or Blacks."

  < This gravestone caught my attention because of the age of the mother that passed, 108 years old!  Her son was 75 when he passed just a few years later.  No other stones nearby with either of their last names, indicating a husband or father, so she might have been a single mother.  He would have been born before the Civil War started, and since they were both in the African American cemetery, it is an unfortunate fact of life at that time she could have been raped by someone who "owned" her because [link>] there were slaves in West Virginia at the time he would have been conceived.

  > Sadly, it was the picture and sentiment on this stone for a young 19-year-old woman that caught my eye.  "She faltered by the wayside, and the angels called her home."  She was buried in the African American cemetery, but her photo appears to be of a white female.  I'm not sure if it was also a cemetery in the 1920s for those who did not belong to the Presbyterian Church across the street.

  I feel like there is a story there.  I may renew my Ancestry.com membership this fall when the weather gets too cool to be outside on the weekends and do some digging.  There is also a book that the Friends of the Old Stone Church Cemetery has put together with information on those buried in both locations that I might see about getting a copy of.

  [link>] The Old Stone Presbyterian Church (in the background of the picture on the left) was built in 1796 and is one of the oldest churches in continuous use west of the Allegheny Mountains.  It escaped destruction during the Civil War due to its use as an emergency hospital for both Union and Confederate troops. After the Battle of Lewisburg on May 23, 1862, Old Stone's sanctuary housed fallen Confederate troops prior to their "burial" in an open trench near the south wall of the church.   They were later moved to a larger mounded "plot" in the shape of a cross with about 95 Union soldiers who had died.

  The cemetery is huge, and I had all the best of intentions to walk both sides, top to bottom to get all my steps in for the day.  Unfortunately, the 80+ heat and the fact that many of the graves had settled over the centuries made the ground extremely uneven and unlevel.  I did not want a broken ankle from a misstep for a grave I didn't see.  But I did walk about 75% of the left side in the picture here.  

  It was a fascinating mix of men killed in the Civil War, whole families (some with surnames I recognized from people I knew), and tragically young children.

  I did see one stone marking an entire family that had a son who died on the same month and day (not year) I was born.  A little morbid that I look for that date, but yeah, I do.  I would like to go back to the cemetery as a planned walk with more appropriate shoes and maybe some paper and charcoal to do stone rubbings. There were some beautiful cut stones and marble.