SELECTIVE CEMETERY READINGS OF
JACKSON COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
NORTH OF U.S. ROUTE 33

Cemetery Readings Made in the Summers of 1977 and 1978

 
Compiled by
George W. Archer
(garcher@email.toast.net)
Published by
George W. Archer
P.O. Box 6233
McLean, VA 22106
2007
 

 

Patrick Archer
Patrick's Children
James Archer
Joseph Archer
Michael Archer
Simon Archer
Jacob Archer
Elizabeth Archer
Mary Archer
Nancy Archer
 

Patrick Archer
Descendants in Ohio

Military Pension files
Records from
Wood Co., WV
Jackson County, WV
Births 1853-1950
Jackson County, WV
Cemetery Readings
Jackson Co., WV
Deed Indexes
1875-1939
Unpublished pages
from M. B. Archer
Churches
Red Brush
Cemetery

Cemetery Tips

1790-1820
Census

Return to
Archer Cousins
Page

Bibliography
 
Introduction
 
 

 

Compiled by George W. Archer
August 10, 2007

 

DEDICATION

To Jackson Co., WV cemetery reading publishers who took the time and mobilized their resources to publish cemetery readings publications that would benefit researchers everywhere.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Betty McIntyre, of Roanoke, VA, a volunteer for the Jackson Co., Rootsweb Mail List, who transcribed my audio tapes in 1998. Her assistance lightened my editing load considerably. Her accurate and intelligently formatted transcriptions and astute comments on the data made while she transcribed added significantly to the accuracy and readability of this work.

Also I would like to thank Carolyn Miihlbach for the enormous amount of work she did to produce two volumes of cemetery readings, listed in the "Sources for Added Information." Her work contributed greatly as a source to cross-check my readings to ensure greater accuracy in this volume.

INTRODUCTION

The impetus for this work was to find the grave of my grandfather, Stephen ARCHER (c. 1858‑c. 1884) who died about six months before my father, Simon ARCHER, was born 24 August 1884, in Sandyville, Jackson Co., WV. according to a letter written by my father. Stephen's grave did not appear where I expected to find it, in Red Brush Cemetery, so I had to assume it was an unmarked grave or that he was buried in another location, possibly a private plot. Based on many years of genealogical work in Jackson Co. on his family,  I was fairly certain I would not find him south of U.S. Route 33, so I limited the search to all cemeteries, private and public, north of U.S. Route 33 to the Wood Co., WV line and east to the Wirt and Roane Co., WV lines and west to the Ohio River. I had an untested theory that I might find him buried with  GRANDON relations or others related to his wife, Helen BUTCHER (1855‑1939) or with the relatives of his grandparents, Stephen ARCHER (c. 1824‑1904) and Nancy GRANDON (c. 1824‑1897) who migrated to Franklin Co., KS about 1890.

Because all family research is cumulative and I did not yet know what I did not know, it seemed reasonable to do a county‑wide survey of all cemeteries where these families lived and create a research tool that would help me in the future. Despite an exhaustive search over two summers of 1977 and 1978, I never did find Stephen Archer's grave. My last resort will be to probe for fallen stones in Red Brush Cemetery just after the Spring rains cease some year. The task or reading all the stones in the north half of Jackson County proved formidable and physically exhausting. I hope the research tool I have created will be of use to genealogists today and in the future so they will not be tempted to undertake such a fruitless search as mine has been.

PREFACE

This work is a list of burials and an attempt to retain the integrity of the plots and family associations on each stone as best as I could identify them. This is NOT an alphabetical listing of names so often produced to avoid creating an every name index. I hope my method of protecting plot and stone listing integrity will serve as a model of how cemetery readings should be done. Alphabetical surname listings of everyone in a cemetery destroys 95% of the value of the readings and the work of those who collected the data. To get genealogical value from the readings, the reader is forced to visit the cemetery itself to determine the relationships of those buried there based on plot arrangements and names on the same stone.

My only compromise in the interests of time was that I did not provide a cemetery plot map of the order I followed to read each cemetery. To do these readings I drove from Washington, D.C. to Jackson Co., WV on two weekends during the summers of 1977 and 1978, slept in the car and worked during daylight hours to return home to a full time 9 to 5 job. Hence my concern to gather accurately as much cemetery data in as short time as possible.

Every effort has been made to ensure accuracy and completeness of the text and index.  The index was compiled using a combination of an index generation module in WordPerfect (5.1 for DOS) and cross‑checking three versions of that index against an editing control index maintained manually after detecting input and text conversion errors while marking the text for the computer‑generated index or saving files. The marked‑up master copy of the final text through seven drafts over six weeks from auditing the audio tape against a draft transcription down to the final printable version.

This work is an edited transcript of an audio tape recording of the readings so it is subject to human and mechanical errors. Where there is any doubt as to the spelling of a name, the work "Phon." (i.e. phonetic) appears thereafter and should be a warning to recheck the cemetery or use the name as spelled with caution. In most cases, I spelled out the names on the tape, even the most common surnames, to increase accuracy in the transcriptions.

To locate the cemeteries, I used a US Geological Survey topographical map set: 7.5 Minute Series V854 (1960) revised from aerial photography of 1975 and a General Highway Map issued by the West Virginia Dept. of Highways, dated 1976 and used the latter map to describe the location of the cemeteries using the county road designations on that map but measuring distances using the USGS map.

In 2007, the road route data will be out of date, and many of the dirt trails have been improved to be secondary roads.  Also because Jackson county is assigning names in place of county road numbers to accommodate 911 emergency services, even that method of describing cemeteries' locations in this book may be a problem. To overcome this, I have given road directions to cemeteries using distance and directions from fixed locations, usually a village or town.

The listings include a few private cemeteries discovered by interviewing local residents and are also identified by Cemetery Number in the readings and in the map annex.

Most cemeteries listed have a description of the condition of the cemetery at the time of the reading to forewarn anyone revisiting the site what to expect given the ravages of time, weather and vandalism. Many of the cemeteries were no longer cared for, their host churches having been abandoned long before 1977‑1978. Some have been vandalized, and in one extreme case, totally destroyed by grazing cows.

The work has been published in hard copy and deposited in various public libraries and genealogical societies:

Public Libraries:
Ripley and Ravenswood, WV
Roan Co., WV
Mason Co., WV
Washington Co., OH Genealogical Library
Mormon Genealogical Society, Salt Lake, UT
West Virginia Collection at the Univ. of West Virginia, Morgantown, WV

Genealogical Societies:
West Augusta Genealogical Society's collection at the Wood Co., WV public library
Ohio Genealogical Society, Mansfield, OH and its chapters:
Noble, Monroe, Guernsey

Archives:
West Virginia State Archives, WV, Charleston

Planned but not yet done as this book is being published is an HTML searchable version for access at the Rootsweb online data depository for Jackson Co., WV: http://www.rootsweb.com.

The book is available for free download in various formats (WordPerfect, plain ASCII text, MS Word  from:
http://wdn.com/~garcher/index  (case sensitive)

Use the index to select the version that best suits your needs.

Planned versions not yet available as this is being published: and PDF and HTML

A CD with the book in the same formats is available from the author at cost of materials and postage.

George W. Archer
PO Box 6233
McLean, VA 22106
garcher@wdn.com

NOTES

1. Notation conventions used in transcribing the stones and markers "(Temporary marker)" ‑ usually a small metal plaque with a sharp pointed shaft driven into the ground above the head of the grave. Inside was usually a small piece of paper or other material that was subject to deterioration by the elements. Most of the data on the plaques with paper inserts will have disappeared by the time this work is published.

"(Metal marker)" ‑ more permanent than a temporary marker having the same shape and method of embedding in the ground, but the letters were embossed on metal strips that were inserted into the plaque's base plate.

"(broken, repaired, buried markers)" This notation implies that the reading is not complete due to the condition of the stone. Markers are sometimes repaired or replaced by family so a visit to the cemetery may be in order to see if the data is now readable from a newer marker.

[  ] includes data not found on the stones. The data source is identified with the entry or at the top of the section containing the data.

"  " used to quote text found on the stone itself.

(?) ‑ the item to the immediate left of "?" or enclosed by ( ) is not certain

( ) enclosing a number, 2‑5, in left margin, denotes how many people were on the same stone.

( ) ‑ comment on condition or type of stone, stone location, type of temporary marker or missing or unreadable words, decorations, fraternal or military symbols, and ancestral lineage.

.... - to denote unreadable letters

2.  Cemetery names and locations

There are more than one cemetery with the same name, such as Parsons, Nesselroad, Fairview that may be south of U.S. Route 33.

Locations and names of cemeteries reference two sets of maps by the National Geological Survey and the West Virginia Dept of Transportation.

3.  Methodology of stone readings and accuracy of the names in this work

Stone readings usually proceeded from left to right along straight rows where possible and is so annotated in the readings. Family relationships of these stones should not be be implied unless designated with the identifier ("plot") at the head of a series of readings. Readings of stones without well‑defined rows are more random. Plots, if identified or discernable on the ground, are annotated as such. Terrain and shrub growth often impeded consistent readings by rows and plots.

Retaining the exact surname listings as written on the stones was of primary concern to help identify multiple marriages or in‑law relationships. A very few mis‑readings of stones were corrected using several references cited below.

The accuracy of the names in the transcription has not been field checked against the actual stones, nor with readings taken by others. There will be differences in the readings. If at all possible have someone go to the cemetery and check the stones themselves. It is likely that after 30 years many of the stones will now be unreadable.

This work should be compared with readings taken by others. See  Sources for Additional Information (Bibliography) at the end of Cemetery Readings and before the Index.

Stones not read or missing from this work are noted in each cemetery's listings with the reasons for the omissions.

The following cemeteries listed on the USGS map north of US 33 were missed and not read):

See Miihlbach's "Grant District Cemeteries" for readings of these cemeteries and my incomplete readings of
Ravenswood Cemetery:
Grant Dist.
Boso
Lamp
Maddox
Smith
Swain

Union Dist.
Ankrum
Bicknell
Boyce
Bush

Ravenswood Dist.
Duncan
Gardner
Ravenswood - Sections 7-8
Wilding
Wright

Surnames in capital letters are the surname as given on a plot marker or the stone itself. If names on the same stone had more than one surname, usually being married women, the probable surname appearing in the middle of the name was capitalized and appears just before the last surname in a listing. Both capitalized surnames are indexed. See the opening paragraph in the Index for details on indexing methodology.

Surnames with multiple variant spellings are cross referenced in the index.

Vital statistics are transcribed in a standardized manner no matter what appeared on the stone: "years, months, days." The months are completely spelled out. Exception: dates using the format  month‑day‑year as numbers were transcribed verbatim.

A very few stones used the method of dating using numbers and hyphen:
e.g. Boyde E. ENOCH, born 5‑11‑1931; died 5‑11‑1931

These were copied exactly as they appeared on the stone. Usually a date format like this is month‑day‑year, as opposed to the European system of day‑month‑year.

The word "(plot)" denotes the beginning of a marked or discernable plot. It was not always possible to determine where a plot ended, however. Based on this, do not assume that every name listed in a plot is related.

4. Abbreviations

Abbreviations used in the transcription or appearing on the stones :
aka ‑ also known as
Bro. - brother
c. ‑ circa or about, approximately
Chas. - Charles
DAR - Daughters of the American Revolution - a national lineage society in Washington D.C.
Dist. ‑ District
DDS - Doctor of Dental Surgery (a dentist)
Jas. - James
Phon. ‑  phonetic spelling as recorded on the audio tape; spelling not verified.
 (see comments above on methodology using a tape recorder to record names)
nee ‑ French for "born" but used to denote a woman's maiden name
Sen. or Sr. -  Senior, i.e.  older
sic ‑ as it appeared in the stone's text; not a transcription error
IOOF ‑ International Order of Odd‑Fellows

Military abbreviations appearing on the stones :
AAA ‑ Anti‑Aircraft Artillery
AAF ‑ Army Air Force
AEF ‑ Allied Expeditionary Force (WW I)
Armd ‑ Armored Division
Arty ‑ Artillery
Batty ‑ Battery (equivalent to a Company in the Artillery)
Brig. - Brigade (consists of several Divisions)
Btry ‑ Battery (equivalent to a Company in the Artillery)
Cav Regt ‑ Cavalry Regiment
Co. ‑ Company
Corp ‑ Corps
Coxan ‑ Navy rank
Cpl. ‑ Corporal (rank)
Det. -  Detachment
Bn. ‑ Battalion
C.S.A ‑ Confederate States of America (Civil War)
Dep. ‑ Depot
F.A. ‑ Field Artillery (a branch of the Army)
GAR ‑ Grand Army of the Republic ‑ a Union Civil War Veterans Organization
GP - Group
Inf. ‑ Infantry
Lance Cpl - Lance Corporal (Marine Corps rank)
Lieut ‑ Lieutenant (rank)
Lt. ‑ light and Lieutenant
Maint. - Maintenance
MG - Machine Gun
MP ‑ Military Police
MSGT‑ Master Sergeant
MTR TRANS CORP ‑ Motor Transportation Corps
NG ‑ National Guard
Ord. ‑ Ordinance
O.V.I ‑ Ohio Volunteer Infantry
Pfc. ‑ Private First Class (military rank)
QMC ‑ Quartermaster Corps
Reg. or Regt - Regiment
S1,2,3,4 ‑ Staffs:
Administration, Intelligence, Operations, Logistics, respectively.
Staffs existed for these functions at all command levels Battalion to Army level
SigC ‑ Signal Corps
Sp Am ‑ Spanish American war (1898‑1899)
Sq.  ‑ Squadron (Air Force unit)
S. Sgt‑ Staff Sergeant (rank)
Sp4 ‑ Specialist 4th Class (rank equivalent to "buck" sergeant ‑ 3 stripes)
T‑Sgt ‑ Tech Sergeant (rank)
TC - Transportation Corps (Army branch)
Tng - Training
USMCR  ‑ U.S. Marine Corps
USN ‑ U.S. Navy
V.I. ‑ Volunteer Infantry
WW I ‑ World War I
WW II ‑ World War II