Friday, November 2, 2012

Stumbling Upon Crumbling Stones


Elizabeth Ambrose wife of Joseph Flowers 1861 headstone Saint Joseph cemetery Somerset Perry County OH
It’s funny how something tangible helps make history credible. I love stumbling upon books containing vignettes of family members from long ago, or even visiting old cemeteries with the headstones of long-lost relatives. Seeing and touching tokens of our past—that makes all the difference in converting history into reality in my mind. Otherwise, even if we’re talking about the microhistory of our own families, distant dates have a way of morphing into the realm of “Once Upon a Time…”

I’m handicapped in trying to determine which members of the extensive Flowers family of Berks County, Pennsylvania, made it to the other side of the Appalachians back in the early 1800s. Death records for the state of Ohio generally weren’t consistently collected until 1867. While Perry County held marriage records from the time of the county’s formation in 1818, those documents wouldn’t prove helpful in this case. The members of this family most likely moved en masse from their old home before that date. Already married, the siblings who accompanied my husband’s direct ancestor—the elder Joseph Flowers—in some cases already had children of their own. (Actually, tracking the birthplace of each of those children can help target a possible year the extended family made the move—if they did move en masse to Ohio. I’ll explore that in a later post.)

There are, however, other tokens of Flowers family members in the Perry County area. As I uncover—or, in some cases, revisit—transcriptions of old records, I begin to see a connect-the-dots pattern interlacing various Flowers family names with earlier and earlier records in the Perry County churches, cemeteries, and documents.

Take the old cemetery records from the county’s first Catholic Church, Saint Joseph in Somerset. Thanks to a concerted effort by several concerned individuals, nearly-lost information gleaned over the years from stacks of broken and crumbling headstones has provided a reconstituted record of burials at that early cemetery. Though some of the stones represent burials as early as 1812 (and perhaps even earlier), the weathered condition of these markers is a humbling reminder of how fleeting these “set in stone” memorials eventually become.

Within the records, I’ve strained my eyes, seeking some familiar Flowers family names. Because of the difficulty of adherence to naming patterns within this extended family, in some cases I’m not sure which individual is represented within these records. However, the composite data for one entry catches my eye:
 Elizabeth, wife of Joseph FLOWERS Sr., d. 9 Mar 1861, age 87y, 0(3)m, 3(5)d
As the website itself explains, the various dates entered on this transcription reflect the source of the original readings. Depending on which numbers are used for the age—and whether either of the entries is, itself, correct—Elizabeth was either born at the beginning of 1774, or late in the previous year.

While discovering this entry in a document online was so encouraging, finding a visual representation makes the discovery all the more tangible. I was fortunate, while working on my data in Ancestry.com, to be alerted to the availability of a photo of the headstone. I emailed the photographer—who may very well be a distant cousin to my husband—and asked for permission to post the photograph here, which I received the other day.

This monument is all that’s left to commemorate the life of Elizabeth Ambrose Flowers, wife of the elder Joseph Flowers. She and Joseph, along with her younger sister Susannah who had married Joseph’s older brother John Henry, made the four hundred mile trek to Ohio with their young families. While the span of dates marking her earlier life fell before the era of government documentation, I can at least be satisfied that this one token still stands to share the reality of her life. No matter how little else I may realize of her eighty seven years, I can claim this as-yet still solid representation of her existence.


Above left: photograph of 1861 headstone of Elizabeth Ambrose Flowers, wife of Joseph Flowers, senior, buried at Saint Joseph Cemetery in Somerset, Perry County, Ohio; courtesy Kittie199; used by permission of photographer.

11 comments:

  1. That stone is in great shape too, which removes all doubt as to whether this is the right person.

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    1. Yes! The details came out really clearly on this photograph, which was why I was so happy to have found it. Some of the other photos I have...well, I think I'll just have to wait until another trip back to Ohio, so I can see for myself. We have a mystery 1829 headstone I want to check.

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  2. How nice that you were allowed to use the photo! I enjoy just walking around the local cemeteries..however I know lots of people resting there..lots of untold stories:)

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    1. That was a treat to receive permission to use it! The details came out so clearly on the picture.

      I share your pastime of walking cemeteries. My fav is visiting some of the historic ones back east. I've found headstones for Portuguese sailors who were born in the 1500s in a cemetery on the far east side of Long Island. Fascinating what can be found in some cemeteries.

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  3. In the Bureau of Land Management records there is a Henry Flowers from Muskingum County who received a land patent in Perry County in February 1813. You may already have this. If not, check it out. My Allmans were in this corner of Ohio at this time, neighboring Carroll County.

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    1. I've seen it, Patrick. Thanks for bringing that up. I'll be tackling that possibility in a post soon.

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  4. I just featured the BLM records in my blog. I'm thinking there is still a lot more in BLM records that I haven't discovered yet.

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    1. I keep deleting. Sorry. For example on the BLM records, I noticed you can click "Related Documents." I believe these many have been the landowners around my ancestor, Stephen Sherwood, but I'm not sure about this yet.

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    2. There is a lot more to be found on the BLM records, as you say, but in my case I've found some names of totally unrelated people. Any linked names found will probably require some extra research, too.

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  5. The idea of "recovering" history by reconstituting records, looking more closely, and connecting the dots -- this is very exciting to me. It's like being in a detective story where the villain is death, and we discover exactly what death has done. When you speak of the 400-mile trek, I am again amazed at the persistence of our ancestors. It's a happy accident that we now have the time, and the means, to remember them as much as possible.

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    1. Well-put, Mariann! Our pioneering ancestors certainly do deserve our appreciation.

      We have it so easy now--which is why this is such a good time for us to throw our energies into recapturing these historic databases and converting them into technology-readable and -retrievable forms. I like the fact that local genealogy societies are still in the business of capturing these old bits of information and converting them into worldwide accessible records so everyone can benefit.

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