Sad Angel: Adamsville Cemetery

I got so intrigued by the Sliding Hill ghost story that I asked my grandson Jared, who is visiting from Los Angeles, to go with me to explore the area. I can't say there is a lot to see--a country highway that borders the railroad tracks that hug the riverbank, small towns and rural homes and farms. But Jared is an adventurer and an explorer, and as intrigued by strange tales as I am.

We drove up Sliding Hill Creek Road, turning here and there, meandering for miles and just looking at the countryside. 

On Sliding Hill Creek Road

We ended up back on the highway, miles from our starting point, in a community called Clifden which  has its own strange story. According to the lady at the diner where we stopped for lunch, there is (or was) a house in the town where the walls just started crying one day. Literally. Water began seeping out of the walls for no reason anyone could discover. She said that the woman living in the house at the time wrote a book about it, but I have not yet found any information about the event or the book. A story for another day.

After leaving Clifden we turned back toward Sliding Hill, stopping on the way at a graveyard I've passed many times but never had time to visit. 

Check out the orb in this photo. I didn't notice it at the time, but now I'd like to go back and look at that gravestone the grave is centered over.

This is the Adamsville Cemetery, as I learned after a long search--it is not listed on Find-A-Grave, or if it is, it is under another name. The cemetery is not being maintained very well, as the grass and weeds were about a foot high, but we waded in anyway.

Yet another bright orb. Usually I can attribute these to dust, but today there was no dust at all;
the grass was still wet with dew.

I have wanted to stop at this cemetery because of this monument:

This angel has caught my eye so many times over the years, and this time I was determined to stop and take photos of her. And would you believe it, I forgot to get the name of the person buried in that plot. So I will have to stop again sometime. Which I will not mind doing. When a cemetery has become a forgotten place, it feels all the more important to stop and visit, a mark of respect for those beneath the soil.

In the center of this graveyard is a stonewalled enclosure made of large cut stones. I believe this might have been the original cemetery and that there was a church down below at one time. Few of the graves within the walls have markers but their presence was obvious when I walked across the area--the ground was sunken in regular intervals. 

Other sites apparently once had wrought iron fences around them; some of the fenceposts are still standing but the fences are missing.

One of the remaining fenced plots

One grave, far up the hill and against the treeline, particularly interested us. The parents' names, Charley and Emma Martin, were clear, as were their birthdates and that of their married daughter. 

There was also a son, Charley Jr, who was buried here. Oddly, there were no death dates for the parents or the daughter. I searched online in West Virginia death records for them and even googled the names but found nothing. Did the family move away after the young son died? How very lonely his grave if that is the case.

In searching for this cemetery's name online, I found another graveyard in the area that I will need to visit one day: the Welsh Cemetery. Suprisingly, Welsh immigrants ended up in Gallipolis, Ohio, and apparently several made their way across the river to West Virginia. We noticed at least one grave in the Adamsville Cemetery that listed place of birth as Wales. So far from their home.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Traveling West Virginia: Benwood and McMechen

I have presented programs at the library here for several years, but usually didn't have time to look around. Located just outside of Wheeling, West Virginia, the homes in these adjoining towns were mostly homes for workingmen's families. Wheeling was an industrial hub, right on the Ohio River with busy railroads, and home of Mail Pouch Tobacco, Wheeling cigars, cut nails, steel-making, pottery-decorating and many other industries. Industries spread south and the towns of Benwood and McMechen thrived during those years of expansion. Like many other towns, the departure of the steel and other industries caused depopulation and an economic downturn in the region. Today there seems to be some growth as new industries are opening their doors in the area, most notably an area of large stores and shopping developing on the east side of Wheeling. The Marcellus shale drilling activity is also bringing many jobs and new business to the area.

We happened up one street and found the McMechen cemetery, located near where the original settler Captain William McMechen's cabin stood.

As I looked around, I could see why he would choose this spot: it was far enough away from the Ohio river to avoid flooding and provided an excellent view of the opening of the hollow so that anyone approaching could be seen immediately. In those early days (1771) threat of attack by the Native Americans in the area was very real and there are several accounts of massacres along the river, including one near here, known as the Foreman Massacre. (The men killed in that attack are buried at the Mount Rose cemetery in nearby Moundsville--another cemetery I need to visit).

photo from Find a Grave

I learned at the library that McMechen was named after Captain McMechen, and neighboring Benwood was named after his son Benjamin, and is an abbreviation of Ben's Wood, the property Benjamin owned.
This stone intrigued me. Who was Grandma Williams? She lived a long life certainly.

The plant I know as Spanish Dagger protects an old stone.

There were several graves here with a cast iron cover like this one. I do not believe I have seen any like this, although I have seen some cast iron gravestones before. I suppose the opening was for planting flowers?

There is a certain charm in little towns like this one. Close-built houses, narrow streets, and empty storefronts that offer an opportunity to speculate on what businesses once operated within.  Town was quiet the day we were there. It was hot and rain threatened.

In McMechen, the fire department houses a vintage firetruck and a memorial to a longtime fire chief.

Some memorials have an eternal flame; this one is continually running water, and what could be more fitting for a firefighter?

We found three buildings painted with the Mail Pouch logo:

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Traveling Upriver

We saw it in January while we were in Wheeling, and Larry kept talking about it on the way home. Finally I said, "Okay, I'll call them and see if they will hold it for us until we can get back up there."

It was something I'd never seen before, although perhaps you have: a vintage metal glider chair for one. Usually porch gliders are made for two, like a couch, but this was a one-person chair. It needed work but the price was right. So I called Sib's, the antique mall (named for the brother and sister who own the place) where we saw the chair and sure enough they were agreeable. I mailed them a check and we figured we'd be back up to get our chair in a week or two. And then it snowed. And snowed. And got really cold, and snowed some more. By the time the weather was reasonable I was up to my neck in storytelling projects. But finally this past weekend we made the trip, combining it with a stop to add new items to our Marietta booth. That saved time and money, since the booth was on the way.

We weren't in a particular hurry, either. We meandered up the Ohio side of the river, which is usually considered to be the fastest way to get to Wheeling from here. We prefer the West Virginia side because of all the picturesque little towns along the way, but the Ohio side is pretty too. I wanted to show Larry a place I'd discovered several years ago with the granddaughters--an original town pump in the small town of Sardis, Ohio. The pump still stands in what was probably once the center of town.

Nearby is Marv's Place and the day we visited turned out to be the 12th anniversary of the restaurant. A cruise-in by antique car owners, music, free cupcakes...it was a great stop all around.

When we approached Wheeling (and were back on the Ohio side of the river) I asked Larry if he remembered where the antique mall was. No, he didn't really. Great! Neither did I! We ruminated on it for a while, and vaguely recalled that it was maybe on Route 40. And maybe we went through the Wheeling tunnel--or maybe not. Since we still had hours before the mall would close, we figured we'd just feel our way to the place, a hit-and-miss system that sometimes works and sometimes gets us terribly lost.

This time it worked. We ended up on what seemed to be a back way between the freeway and old Route 40 (also known as The National Road, since it was the first coast-to-coast road-building attempt). We stumbled on an old cemetery with this sign posted in front:

Hmmm... is business dying in Wheeling? Actually, the park was on down the road a bit; the Peninsula Cemetery is historic and apparently haunted, if the stories about it are to be believed.

We did not have time by this point to investigate, but it's a promising place for a return visit.

 from WV Culture and History's website 

This grave, according to the article from the Wheeling News-Register posted on the WV Culture and History website, is the grave of a slave. I definitely need to make another visit here. You can read more about the cemetery and its legends here.

We made a stop at the Goodwill in Moundsville on the way home (when have I ever been able to resist a Goodwill?) and found a lovely little desk. When we took out the drawers to carry it into the house,  lot of papers fell out that identified the former owner as Maxine Earnest of Cameron, WV. I looked her up online and found that she passed away last year at 100 years of age. Such history her little desk must have seen.

We made one more stop on the way home at one of my favorite places, The Wells Inn in Sistersville, WV.

Spring cleaning and other work was afoot at the historic building. We had a good chat with Charles Winslow, the owner, and picked up a copy of the newspaper he's publishing, The INNformer. It's filled with interesting articles; Charles wrote an article in this issue about the early airmail service along the Ohio River valley-the planes never touched the ground! They made a swoop from the sky and snatched bags of mail with a hook. Fascinating reading. You can friend the INNformer on Facebook here. There are links there to more information about the mail service.

After a dinner that exactly met what I was craving (spaghetti with meat sauce, salad, garlic bread, coffee and coconut cake) we decided to walk off a few calories with a stroll around town.

\

And then we were homeward bound. It was a good day, start to finish.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Music in the Graveyard: The Holstein Family Cemetery

 Larry never knew exactly where his family's graveyard was. His parents and brother elected not to be buried there, and instead were interred in a commercial cemetery closer to the main highway. But Larry knew there was a cemetery called the Holstein Cemetery, and he also knew that many relatives were buried there.

When we visited his homeplace last weekend, we hunted up his distant cousin, Junior Holstein. Junior is an old-time musician; we have met up with him from time to time over the years, most recently when he was the Master Fiddler Player at Augusta Heritage last August. He was also honored to be onstage at the Vandalia Festival last year. Finding Junior is a quest: he has a homeplace but he is often out and about. He doesn't drive but has many friends and relatives, and he will go about anywhere to play music.

We found Junior with a group of his friends under a spreading shade tree in the little community of Ashford, WV. He was happy to see us, remembering me from last year, and wanted us to go with him to his home where he could play music and maybe we could sing. On the way there, he mentioned the Holstein cemetery. Would he take us there, we asked? Sure, he said. He'd like to go himself.

The cemetery is located on a little knoll about Bull Creek, where Larry's early ancestors settled when this was still part of Virginia. According to what we could find in family history, they came there around 1770. They lost their homes when the mineral rights were naively sold years ago and strip-mines took their farms. Today Bull Creek is off limits; only mine traffic is allowed. How sad is that?

But the cemetery is still accessible. As we entered, Junior said, "My mother and father are buried here. I want to sing something for them." He pulled out his guitar and began to sing That Home Above, a gospel song (you can here Bill Monroe singing it here). Junior's singing, in his aged, quavering yet true voice, was perfect for the time and place.

Junior's singing, in his aged, quavering yet true voice, was perfect for the time and place.

 What struck me in this place was that although all buried here were related, they spelled their last name at least four different ways! There was Holstein, Holsteen, Holstine, and Holstien. Which is correct? All of them, as well as Holsten, Holston, Holestine, and several other variations.

Many graves were marked only with rough stones, with no names discernable.

This old tree with its gaping opening caught my eye and reminded me of Larry's stories of his father going after bee trees and bringing home "bee gums." He'd cut out the section where the bees were, put a board on top and bottom and bring his bees home.

Larry was touched to see the grave of Dempsey Holstine, who loved to play music. Someone had placed a wreath shaped like a guitar on his grave. How fitting and respectful.

We didn't spend a lot of time here; Junior wanted to get home so we could sing. But we will return, and soon. There is so much history here of hard-working people, many of them coal miners and their families, and here is where his roots first grew.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Forgotten Places, Remembered Tales

"Would you like me to take you to see Ikie's tomb?"

Would I! The story of the little boy who died from eating bad ice milk has been following me around for two years. I've read everything I could find on the topic and even viewed census records and cemetery records seeking more information about this strange tale.

It's not that he died. Sad enough in itself. It was his burial that haunted me. Why would a mother put her child in a concrete tomb and place his body in formaldehyde with a glass cover over the top of the concrete "casket"? And put a viewing window in the tomb? And keep his toys in there, and a rocking chair? Was it true that there were other children who died that she placed in stone jars and also covered with formaldehyde so only their faces were visible? Who was she? What happened to this woman whose grief must have turned her mind to strange avenues?

Frank and I agreed that today was the day to make the trip to Ikie's burial place. According to the legends, he was actually buried three times: once in a casket, then disinterred and moved to the tomb, and then, when the tomb was opened and vandalized, into his final grave. Frank's mother and grandmother told him stories about Ikie's tomb and he shared those with us as we drove to the site.

I knew only the name of the cemetery, and once I made a meandering journey hoping to stumble on it along the way. No wonder I did not find it; the cemetery is far back in the hills and requires a 4-wheel-drive to get there. But it was worth the trip. The beautiful, lonesome ridge had views for miles. There were steps that probably once led into a church, so long gone that only a few concrete blocks and a piece of tin spoke to its existence.

Graves were scattered over the hill, some only sunken divets in the earth with no marker to tell who rested there. Many were of young people and babies. It seemed that for every stone that marked the grave of someone who had attained an age over 50 years, there were four for those who had died younger. A sober reminder of the hardships of early life in this area that remained a frontier for years after the West was being settled. Here Frank examines a child's stone in an overgrown section of the cemetery.

The tomb itself was...how to put it? It moved me in unexpected ways. Trees broken in this past summer's derecho storm formed a casual arch across the trail leading to the tomb, and to one side we could see the remains of a campfire left, perhaps, but Halloween visitors.

So many thoughts swirled, so many questions. Why had they put it on top of this hill?

Who had put the iron around it when the concrete began to crack? Who had sealed the door with concrete? Why were there two longer trenches in the vault beside the space where Ikie was laid?

What was the truth of why his body was eventually moved to a traditional grave?

So many questions. I wondered about his family and why they had moved away, and who maintained this site. Some day I will return, and until then, I will be pondering the questions left by one little boy's death.

Frank had many other places to show us and as we traveled his stories colored and peopled the landscape. Here is where his grandfather's farm had been, land gifted to the grandfather by two elderly ladies who had no heirs. He was shocked at the gift, but it was a godsend to this man from a large and struggling family. Here is a place where Frank camped when a boy, building a fire in the fireplace and getting his deer just out the back door. Here is the church he attended as a boy, and here is a church, now abandoned, that his grandmother used to walk to for services, a walk of three miles across rugged hills. Here was where the brine plant was, a business that employed 20-25 people in its time, shipping the salty water from brine wells to places unknown for uses unknown. Here was a friend's house, and here is the friend's grave. Here is the mass grave of a family of five who perished together when their home burned to the ground. Here is the house that was featured in a movie in the 1970's. Here is a little town whose name changed for no reason. Here is where men dynamited a hillside so that a creek would flow straight instead of in its natural curvy route, and here is where they built a mill in the blasted out hole, a place now called "The Jug." Here is the mansion where a doctor lived, crumbling now but remembered by Frank as a fine home in its heyday. Here is where a slave girl drowned her master's daughter, and here is where the slave was hanged for the deed.

Stories, stories, stories. Stories of lives lived and ended, of boom days and hard times, of farms and country stores and bridges that once were and homes that still stand. This is the true stuff of history, the foundations of these hardy communities and people. I sought one story but came home with more than I can count. We arrived home as the sun set behind our West Virginia hill, and I came here to my computer to record what I saw, what I remember, and what I want to share with others. In my mind I see a lonely tomb, an abandoned church, a gnarled and twisted tree standing guard in a high cemetery, and I hear the voice of my friend, making it all come alive once again in his stories.



Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.