Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Just Off the Road


Just off a road not far from our farm is a tiny family cemetery.  It seems to be all Paynes -- the concrete marker above -- which I can't really decipher -- and the family of one James Payne. 

James H. Payne ( 1838 - 1915 according to information on Find A Grave HERE) seems to have served in the 2nd NC Mounted Infantry.  (Union -- see THIS SITE.) 

 Mollie (Mary) E. Payne (1848 - 1899) is here . . .

As is a daughter of theirs . . .


And a son . . .


There are several rocks which may be foot stones or may be intended as markers.  According to Find a Grave, James had fifteen children by two wives . . . I'll have to pursue this a bit farther . . .


6 comments:

Ms. A said...

Large family. We had some of those, too. My Aunt wasn't quite from that era and is still living, but she has 8.

Kath said...

Fascinating. I live in a subdivision that historically was land owned by the Clay family (Green and then Cassius), and less than 30 years ago this area was tenant farms. There are purportedly seven small family cemeteries within our boundaries. Two are fenced off and maintained by the subdivision. I've not seen the others but would guess they are small like the photos you've shown. Something very tender about these.

NCmountainwoman said...

I love to run across small cemeteries and try to imagine the lives of those resting there.

Barbara Rogers said...

How interesting. The Paynes of Madison County...sound like a story to me.

L. D. said...

Is your little graveyard on find a grave site? We had a small graveyard near where we lived on the farm. There were on set of stones that were not placed straight with the world but at diagonals to all the rest of the grave stones.

Gwen said...

From my geneaological research I did learn that fieldstones were typically used as headstones, particularly by those who were not very wealthy. One of my ancestors is buried in such a cemetery with a fieldstone marker. Unfortunately, there's no way to know which was hers. Sometimes, if a researcher is lucky, they will find some very elderly person who remembers going to the graves on "Decoration Day" and remembers their mother telling them who each person was that was buried in each spot. By the way, from the photo it looks as if it might say Boston Payne.