This is the gravestone of my 5th great grandfather, Josias Brown. I first learned of him in 1997 when I made contact with a distant cousin whose main interest was in finding as much information about Josias' descendants as she could. My family filled in some blanks for her because I am descended from Josias Brown's daughter, Margaret (Brown) Atkinson.I wasn't happy with the quality of the photographs I took that day at Peters Run Cemetery (AKA Old Tent Cemetery), especially the ones of the graves of Josias and his wife, Hannah (Mitchell) Brown. I guess that means I'll have to go back!
It took me years to find this cemetery. I think I first looked for it in the summer of 1998, driving back and forth several times along Peters Run Road outside Wheeling WV, a very curvy, 4.7 mile long road lined with thick trees that has a surprising amount of traffic, which made it impossible for me to drive along as slowly as I wanted to. I went back a few years later with my husband along and still couldn't find it. Finally, in 2006, someone was able to give me a general location for the cemetery, and in the summer of 2007 I finally found it! The people who own the property were very nice! They've been working on restoring the graveyard, and they gave me printouts of a cemetery reading done by the DAR back in the 50s or 60s. They also showed me two gravestones there that they had recently unearthed. The names of those two people never appeared on any previous transcript and they were hopeful that they would continue to find buried gravestones.
You can see more about Josias Brown and his family HERE, and you can visit his virtual grave on Find a Grave.
Thank you for posting this. I too am a descendant of Josias by way of his daughter Jane (Brown) Waddle. I had the chance to visit the cemetery this past December and even with the aid of GPS and Google I found the site difficult to find as well. Not knowing where to park I decided to stop up the road and walk back. The cemetery is still in need of repair and after realizing my shoes were picking up a fair amount of mud I decided to leave after a short moment of silence in the corner of Waddles and Browns. I shall return.
ReplyDeleteGlad to meet you cousin! I'm just glad the cemetery isn't completely lost and the property belongs to someone who respects it, even if they don't have the time or resources to restore it!
DeleteWell, if I had known I was going to show up as Unknown I would have left my name. I'll add that I've been working on my corner of the family tree for the last few years and have updated findagrave with my more recent generations. My line of Waddles settled near Dayton, OH and can be found mostly at Woodland Cemetery in Xenia, OH and Fercliff Cemetery in Springfield, OH. If you ever get a chance to visit Ferncliff, do it. It's an absolutely beautiful and large cemetery.
DeleteTravis Waddle