In May I flew across Canada and spent 2½ weeks in Nova Scotia. It had been a few years since I'd been back so it was nice visiting with friends and family, catching up, exchanging stories.... but I have to admit I was most looking forward to spending some serious time in cemeteries all across Yarmouth County, and that's exactly what I did. I had gone with the intent of taking headstone pictures in a couple of cemeteries. I ended up taking almost 2000 pictures in 13 cemeteries! It was awesome!
It had been many years since I'd been out to Kemptville and I wasn't sure I even knew the way anymore, but thankfully I have a great friend who was kind enough to be my guide. It was raining the entire day we spent out there, he really was a good sport to hang in there and show me the area. A few days later I went out on my own and got a few more pictures, then my sister, Tracy, and I went back for more.
I had been in touch with Justin, a distant Gray cousin who had said that he lived in an original Gray house, plus his land led to the spot called "School House Cove" where Capt Jesse is supposed to have been buried. When Tracy and I were out there we stopped in to see Justin and check out the old site. He took us for about a 10 minute walk down an old tractor road behind his house, then off into the woods to the spot where the old meeting house is said to have been. There was still a semi-cleared area where we could see large flat now mossy stones that were likely used for the foundation. Justin had grown up being told that the burial ground was off to one side of the area, but unfortunately no markers remain.
Capt Jesse's house used to be down there on the shore of School House Cove, but had later been moved further inland, away from the immediate shore. Then in later years it was moved yet again to where it currently stands near the Hatfield Cemetery on the Gray Road. Nobody currently lives there, and I wouldn't take the chance of walking around inside, after over 200 years I'm sure the floors could use a bit of work! I'm just impressed and pleased as punch that it still stands and that I was able to find it (again, thanks to Justin for great directions). We did get up near the house and take a picture through the side window ... it's a bit of a mess inside, but still very cool to get a peek into what used to be my 4th great grandfather's home in the early 1800's.
So although I wasn't able to lay eyes on Capt Jesse's grave, I did find a whole lot of other Grays all over the county. When I'm doing ancestry and filling in names and dates, often some information is vague or incomplete or just not available from certain sources. Written records don't always clear things up, sometimes they muddy the waters even more, but I find that information chiseled into stone is rarely wrong, or at least I like to believe it's so.
One of the main cemeteries I'd planned
to document is the one in Plymouth, where I grew up. I knew already
that there are a LOT of Grays in there, which was quickly confirmed.
Some names that I had been hoping to find and clarify some information
and dates on were not there, which was disappointing, but I did get some
other things sorted out. I'd been hoping to find Jesse jr's wives, but
neither was mentioned anywhere. Neither was his twin brother, Samuel.
His son, Watson, is buried right next to him. I'm still a bit obsessed
about that name ... ok, more than a bit ... sooner or later I will
figure it out.
I was pleasantly surprised to find the one and only Mangum stone (to my knowledge) in the county. I admit, I haven't been to EVERY cemetery and there may be more Mangums in the ones I have yet to do, but so far this is IT. I also found lots of Hemeons, Moods, Crockers, and so very many Hurlburts.
This one family has touched my heart many times. Joseph Gray & Caroline Woods. Joseph was a brother to my great grandfather Edgar. Like most families, Joseph & Caroline had lots of children, except that many of theirs died as infants. When I was just filling them in on my Ancestry tree with the information from NS BMD files I'd find the birth of a child, then almost immediately the death of that child. In East Kempt I came across this stone, listing 5 children ... one died at the ripe old age of 13, the others only lived a few days or weeks. Imagine what that poor family went through, losing baby after baby ... heartbreaking.
I try to do a bit of Ancestry digging every day, and it has gotten to
the point that some names have become embedded in my mind, to the point
where I'd be photographing a cemetery and come across a stone with names
that I have seen so many times, it felt like finding an old friend.
You can walk through a cemetery full of people you don't know and all
you see are stones with strangers' names everywhere. This experience
was the exact opposite for me. These aren't just stones with names on
them. They were people who lived where I lived, and a part of them
lives in me now. I spent a lot of time standing in quiet
contemplation, surrounded by people who all had a hand in my family
tree.
I already know that on my next trip to Nova Scotia I have many more cemeteries to do, I've only just scratched the surface.
