Kirkbride Gravesites

I have been touring Washington County to visit my ancestors who once lived there. Many were born and raised there. I'll try to keep this as organized as I can, and go by generations in order.

My great-grandparents are buried at Eastlawn Cemetery in Marietta, Ohio. Perley Kirkbride (11 Nov 1887-10 May 1969) and Charlotte Hillary Scherrer (18 Feb 1909-7 June 1998).

 The family has few photos that I know of of Perley, but this is one of them. The photo says March 1961, but because there are presents under that Christmas tree I would hazard a guess it was taken in December 1960...but I don't know that at all.

Charlotte, in May 1976.

This is their home on Washington Street. According to their death records it was Perley's last residence and also that of his father, Nathan, so I'm thinking he inherited his dad's house. I wonder how many generations grew up here...I know my grandfather did.

Charlotte's parents were James William Scherrer (15 Feb 1865-6 Aug 1939) and Charlott Hill (19 Sept 1864-18 Feb 1909). James' death certificate lists his cause of death as cancer of the bladder and prostate. Charlott died after giving birth to their daughter; her cause of death reads Syncope due to Parturition. The two of them are buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Marietta, Ohio along with their son Harry who died at about 19 years old and I believe their daughter, Bonnie.

Charlott Hill's parents are supposedly buried in Mound Cemetery in Marietta, Ohio but I haven't found their stone yet--if it's legible or even there. I don't even know for a fact if they are in Mound cemetery. Their names, though, are Silas R Hill (8 Apr 1814-10 Sept 1873) and Julia Ann Geren (15 Sept 1822-27 Sept 1908). I have names beyond that, but not many details for the Hills and Gerens. So, back to the Kirkbrides...


Perley's father's name was Nathan Kirkbride (22 Apr 1856-29 Nov 1940) and his mother was Mary Melissa Smith (7 Sept 1853-30 July 1926). I believe they were both born in Washington County as well. They are both buried in Eastlawn Cemetery, next to Perley and Charlotte

Nathan's cause of death is listed as carcinoma of the stomach, and Mary's was a cerebral hemorrhage. I have Mary's parents as Eli Smith and Melissa Cohn. My trail ends there for her ancestors. Again..back to the Kirkbrides...

William Kirkbride (22 Jun 1835-24 Mar 1910) and Weltha Decker (31 Jan 1837-17 Jan 1917) were the parents of Nathan. I have another post with their photos and more on them. They are buried in Findlay, Ohio but I haven't gotten there yet...I'll post photos when I do.

Weltha's parents were Levi Elston Decker (7 Feb 1811-22 Aug 1893) and Grace Ferguson (9 May 1816-25 Aug 1896). The two of them are said to have had 13 children. They are buried in Decker/Bowersock Cemetery in Independence Township, Washington County. They are buried next to two of their infants. I found a great article on Levi and the family here.

All I know of Levi's parents is that his dad's name might be Elisha and he came from New Jersey.

Grace's parents were Thomas Ferguson (b. 1765 Virginia, d. 1839 Newport, Ohio) and Grace Holdren (b. 1786 Pennsylvania, d. 1847 Newport, Ohio). They are buried in Newport Cemetery in the yard of Newport Methodist Church. They are with three of their children, Grace's parents (Joseph Holdren (b. 1757 d. 1807) and Grace Coleman (b. 1749 d. 1842)), and Thomas' father (James b. 1750).

So, that's that for the Decker line PSHEW. Back, again, to the Kirkbrides, we last saw William. His parents were...

Nathan Kirkbride (b. 1793 d. 1863) and Sarah Ann Farely (b. 1793 d. 1888). Nathan is buried at Lawrence Baptist Church Cemetery in Independence Township, Ohio. It looks like he and his family were the first ones buried here. The stones are very hard to read. I had to trace them with my hands to decide what they said.

Nathan's stone isn't broken, but it has fallen down. I think the engraving on the top is a flower. There are two that match next to it.

I believe this says Charles, son of N & S.A. Kirkbride. I'm really not sure.

I'm not sure about this one, but it does say Kirkbride.

I have a lot more generations with the Kirkbrides, back to the 1100s. One of them is supposedly buried at Windsor Castle.

I hope you've enjoyed my search here. It's far from over. If there is anything you're interested in that I didn't include I may have information on it--just let me know!

The other sides of the family are on the way.

Aidan and the Raft

Someone has a summer cold so we haven't been able to have much fun lately, but we had to get out and try the raft before dad takes it down the New River in a week so we decided to make a family affair of it. Aidan's been an a canoe once, as seen here, but this was his first time in the white water raft. It'll be a while before he's in it in whitewater, but we can still say he's been rafting.

There was a big of fixing and rigging on Saturday, Aidan helped with that.

He got a little upset when I came back and didn't pick him up. Otherwise he loves the canoe.

Then on Saturday night he made a mess with the goldfish. There's a reason we buy them in bulk at Costco.

Sunday evening we hit the Reservoir and got him out on the raft. He was ready for the sun.

Now for the dreaded life jacket. He hates it. I don't blame him, it looks so uncomfortable. We'll be trying his jacket suit next time, it might be less obtrusive.

Arlo and Grandma took the canoe. I don't think she realized what she signed herself up for when she offered to take the job. It might have been easier to do a log rolling contest.

Somehow they managed to stay dry.

Aidan liked sitting up high with grandpa. It makes rowing a bit of a challenge.

He's watching me post this right now saying "Ba ba. Ba ba!" He loves pictures.

He spent most of the time up front with daddy and I.

Overall, he did much better than the last time we had him on the water. There's more room in the raft and you can move around. That helps a lot. And he could sit on our laps and be content.

Though he did better, I don't think he'll be doing the Gorge in two weeks. We've got to train him in river rescue first.

A Local Ancestor

In my search, I found an ancestor that was buried in Delaware county. Little did I know that they practically meant down the street. She's about a 20 minute drive, in traffic, from my house. Her name at her time of death was Abigail Bennet, though her maiden name was Beers. Her second husband that she's buried with is named Ishmael Bennet, but the one who was my grandfather is Philip Weeks (?-3 July 1778). 

Philip and Abigail (About 1742-28 July 1839) had a daughter named Lydia (About 1778-28 May 1867) who is a grandmother of mine. Abigail would have been my Great (x7) Grandmother. For the family reading this, she was the great-grandmother of John W Ricketts (18 June 1835-1 June 1863) on his mother's side, so Ricketts folks, she's your ancestor, too.

If my sources are correct (and at this generation they may very well not be because I have no documents, just what someone types into a website) she was born in Connecticut. She married both of her husbands in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She and Philip were married in 1773. Something's just not right in my sources though, because I find her daughter, Lydia, was born in Perry County, Ohio, but that means she would have left Pennsylvania and then returned later to marry Ishmael. I do believe she's the right person, but I don't think that the locations are right for either her daughter's birth or her second marriage. She theoretically could have gone back to PA, especially if she didn't have family support when her husband died, but in that time I really doubt the trek was made-it was horse and buggy, you know.

The cemetery she's found in is very small. According to findagrave.com there are about 110 internments, that includes people buried together so there aren't many headstones.

Their gravestone also has a veteran's flag and star next to it that reads "1776" my uneducated guess on the topic suggests that he was a revolutionary war veteran...but I really wasn't well taught in school about wars. I learned about the standardized tests, but not the Seven Year's war or the war of 1812 or any of that business. I think I'll learn about it in my zeal to learn about these ancestors as I come across veterans like this.

After researching the history of Harlem Township, I have come to find that our ancestors were part of it's founding. Wow. It's impressive to me. Though Ishmael was my step Great (x7) Grandfather, I noticed the names and photographed the graves nearby that were of his family. I don't know how he was related to Daniel, but I took a photo of his headstone. That is...if this is the right Daniel Bennet. He could be a jr.

What I'm getting at is this...

Harlem Township
The township was formed from Sunbury Township in 1810 and was named by Dutch settlers from Harlem, New York, who brought the name from Harlem in the Netherlands. Benijah Cook bought 4000 acres for 42 cents per acre at a sheriff's sale in Franklinton. Others who followed were Stephen Thompson, Rev. Daniel Bennett, Elijah and John Adams, William Fancher, N.B. Waters, John Budd, Benjamin Farishild, George Fix, Conrad Wickizer, Thomas and Eleazer Mann, Abijah and Gorden Mann, Daniel Hunt, Elam Blain, John Hanover, Jonathan Bateson and Nathan Paul. The settlers were from New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Centerville (Center Village) was laid out in 1848 by Edward Hartrain and Ben Roberts. By 1880 it contained about 150 residents. Amos Washburn and James Budd laid out Harlem in 1849. This smaller town had only 50 residents in 1880.                                                 From "History of Delaware County and Ohio, 1880"

This text can be found here.

That other name there, Conrad, he married Lydia Weeks, Abigail's daughter. He's my Great (x6) grandfather.
Upon further research, there seems that there once was a "Wickizer Cemetery" that can no longer be found. I found a detailed site listing it as Wickhieser Cemetery, but there is a house there now according to the map. Thanks for building on my family. Just kidding. We'll see if I can find anything else on it. For now, that map can be found here.

This lack of organization in this post gives evidence for how this search is going...one thing leads to another and another.

The township's website describes their upcoming bicentennial celebration of it's founding in 1810. It's the weekend I go back to school, but I'll see if I can make it out there--considering I'm related to the beginning families and all. Besides, who doesn't enjoy a small-town festival, except for the people who grew up in that small town?

So, I think that's enough discovery shared for today. I will try to do better research before beginning a post so that my thoughts are more concrete next time. I never liked writing drafts.

Scrapbook Planning

I have too many projects and not enough time already, but I've decided I'm going to make an attempt at scrap-booking. I'm going to wait until I'm done with that baby blanked I started; I have to manage to find yarn to match the brand that the local craft store no longer carries. I have the option of ordering it online but I don't want to wait that long, I'm so close to done. Here's hoping I find something good.

I had prints made of our photos from the Lake Erie trip, and wow it's a big stack. I'm looking forward to the fun of scrap-booking!!

We were at JoAnn Fabrics the other day and found a good deal on these paper stacks. All of their stacks were half-off and the two 8x8 ones were on clearance for $1.97 each!! We had to get them, and were glad they were useful patterns for us.

I also found those clear halloween stamps for $1. I'm getting ready for the fall I suppose, though I'm not mentally ready at all.


While browsing the paper stacks I found out you can go to DCWV's web-site and see each stack they make and exactly what all the pages look like. That's great for me because I can never choose which ones I want and I don't like leafing through them in the store...that's what they put stickers on the pages for, to stop people from doing that. I'm sure the other companies do some of this, too.

Great New Resource

I have been finding so much in my ancestry search. It's amazing what's out there on the internet. If you want to get started with your family, you can create a free account at ancestry.com to keep track of your family tree. From there you can see some documents (1880 census and older I believe) and use message boards to search other's information they've been searching for, too. I can only imagine how amazing a full account would be, I'm just trying to do as much as I can for free first before I start considering purchasing the full membership.

I have been using familysearch.org to search things for a while now, but I just found a section of their site that is a "pilot". It allows you to search records, and with some of them you can view the records themselves. It's amazing. You can find it here.

This is a screen shot of the death certificate of  my "great grand aunt", if you will, Zephyr Marshall, found on their record search.

I've found so many different "leads" for things to look into. I have a spreadsheet I've started to try to keep track of who is buried where for my cemetery search. I've also started using a notebook to jot down ideas because it's impossible to keep track of them without something. These death records often list their last residence, so potentially, if the building is still there, I could also go visit where they once lived, at least to see it.

The census records are also quite interesting, particularly the one from 1900. It has a lot of info compared to the older ones. I found a great-great-great-grandmother of mine who could read, but couldn't write, Jane Parsons.

Exciting Kirkbride Finds

I will share more, but for now I'll add this book I've found online. There is probably more somewhere else to it, and I'm going to keep looking, but for now, those interested may enjoy.

You can click on the title at the top of the frame to open another window, then click "Read Online" or the image of the book on the left of the screen if you want to see it larger.

Aidan's Build-A-Bear

Our lovely neighbors got Aidan a gift card to Build-A-Bear for his birthday. We finally got around to taking him to pick out his bear. It was a great way to get him out of the house on this rainy day, that's for sure!

He liked this dog the best.

He liked chewing on him...he was a little wet when we handed him over to be stuffed.

Aidan tried kissing the heart...he didn't exactly know what to do but thought it was cool.

He didn't see it boxed up, but he knew he wanted that box in the car.

And he got it...

We got him some spiffy overalls too!

Thanks so much, Ann and Jess!! I'm sure Spot will be a keepsake for years to come.