Cemeteries

This is a place to post problems regarding historical cemeteries and those which may not be historical but are in jeopardy of distruction in the name of the dirty word: Progress.

Below is a problem of concern to the citizens of Tazewell County Virginia. If you read this please feel free to copy and send to your local historical association and newspaper to raise the conscience of those with a voice and who can act through legislation and court orders and enforcement of court orders by county sheriff department.

Tazewell Co, VA - L list Monday, 7 Feb 2005

News of land owner, W. L. Finney's removal of the iron fence surrounding
a cemetery containing the sacred resting place of Revolutionary soldier,
Hezekiah Whitt.

Mr. Finney has stated that it is also his intention to remove the stones.
The cemetery is the burial place of the WHITT-LOWE family, and is known
by that name.

The destruction of the historic Whitt house has already begun; the upper
floor has been demolished. While we may be powerless to prevent further
damage to the house, it is lawfully within our power to halt the egregious
invasion of this cemetery.

With the assistance of the Historical Society, the Tazewell County
administration has been apprised of the situation and are acting upon
it. I have been in contact with reporters from the Bluefield Daily Telegraph
and television station, WVVA.

Please pass the word along to any who are willing to help, especially
SAR/DAR organizations, SCV camps, and those who live in the southwest VA
area. There is no time for letter writing, your phone calls are desperately
needed.

If you would like further information of yesterday's events, please browse
the archives of the Tazewell - L. If you can lend help and support in any
way, please make phone calls, subscribe to the Tazewell-L and let your
voice be heard.

After the urls, please scroll down for phone numbers in Tazewell County.
I will respond to all who wish to contact me, (after you have read the
archived messages).

Stand up and be counted among the numbers of us who will not tolerate
the desecration to the memory of our ancestors who fought to win our
country's freedom.

Debra Rookard
Atlanta, GA
5th great granddaughter of Hezekiah Whitt

I hear their whispers; etherial, soft, and still.
Daughter, if you don't remember us, who will?

Links:

http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/VATAZEWE/2005-02

Whitt-Lowe Cemetery Transcription
ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/va/tazewell/cemeteries/whitt1.txt

Persons to Contact:
276.979.8181 State Senator Phillip P. Puckett

276.988.5966 H. Caudill, Sheriff of Tazewell County

276.988.7541 James E. Blevins, Tazewell County Clerk

276.988.1266 Deanis Simmons , Tazewell County Attorney

276.988.1240 Dennis Lee, Attorney for the Commonwealth of VA, Tazewell
County

Newspapers
276.963.1081 - Richlands News Press
276.988.4770 - Clinch Valley News

Proactive Citizen
Subject: Re: Destruction of Revolutionary Cemetery in Tazewell Co, VA

I have emailed my local NJ [ Courier News (Bridgewater, NJ)
statewide coverage, and is one of the largest newspapers in NJ. They are
very proactive] newspaper "Letter to the Editor" with the following:

"Although the event described in the attached mesage occured in Virginia,
the problem is nationwide. Historians, genealogists and concerned
citizens should be aware that we all have a part in preserving our
national heritage(s). The destruction of historical landmarks has
happened, and may happen again, in any state. New Jersey, which had its
fair share of action during the American Revolution, and is the home to
innumerable locations of historical value, should be aware of this danger
and plan for this eventuality. The desecration of our Revolutionary
burial grounds and/or landmarks should not be tolerated. We, instead,
should be honoring and recognizing those who fought and died to preserve
our country's legacy, rather than usurping their final resting places and
destroying the sites where they fought and suffered.

Barbara Brown Hootman
Hillsborough, New Jersey
b.hootman@att.net "

I am also forwarding this message to the NY Times.
Barb

Links to Research

Sites to search for people and information.

Search over 5,000 Ships Passenger Lists to USA
http://olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/search_ships.shtml

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Naturalization Records at
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Genealogy Blogs
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Karen Blessen--artist, writer, humanitarian
http://www.karenblessen.com


Slave purchases in Louisiana and Territory

Louisiana

An area for Posting and Comments

Mississippi

An area for Mississippi postings and comments.

Civil War Research

National Archive and Virginia Civil War Maps Source:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/collections/civil_war_maps/

Langford/Lankford DNA Project

Recognizing that our families used both the LanKford and LanGford spellings of their surname a
DNA Project including both spellings has been created.

This family name has been found via DNA tests to consist of at least four unrelated groups.

The given names seem to be repeated in each of these groups which causes much confusion in researching
any one particular branch.

Posting documents of individuals in each state they are found will be one way for researchers to
combine their efforts and solve who is who in these families.

All Langford/Lankford families are encouraged to participate in the DNA Project and thereby assist
in identifying the ancestral lines.

Quakers or Society of Friends

Quaker Migration to America
To escape persecution at home, many Quakers sought refuge in America. In fact, George Fox conceived the idea of a separate colony in America. Although that project did not materialize, there were Friends among the earliest arrivals of British colonists who settled Massachusetts, Maryland, and Virginia. Fox preached to these scattered groups of Friends when he traveled throughout the colonies in 1671-1673. While one of the major motives for settlement in the New World was to find religious freedom, Quakers discovered that religious toleration was often no more available to them in the established communities of North America than it had been in England.

Due to this unfriendly and often hostile reception, the Quakers realized that their only immediate solution to the harassment was separatism---the establishment of their own colony or, at the very least, their own communities. The year 1674 was a turning point for the Quakers. In that year Lord Berkeley offered to sell half of New Jersey, and two Quakers, John Fenwick and Edward Billings, accepted the offer. Of even greater significance was the fact that William Penn, who had inherited a large estate from his father, Admiral William Penn, together with a claim for 16,000 pounds sterling against the British Crown, became interested in purchasing land for the followers of this religion to which he had been converted.

Consequently, in 1680 Penn asked King Charles 11 for a proprietary grant in consideration of "the debts due to him and his father from the Crown." The grant was allowed and in 1681 Penn opened the colony of Pennsylvania to Quakers, who began to pour in by the hundreds from Wales, England, Germany, and the Netherlands. Even though Pennsylvania was established as a refuge for Quakers, the form of government which Penn established was so liberal that before long there were more non-Quakers than Quakers living there and, in time, some Quakers began to think of moving farther west.

The first movement of Friends from the Atlantic Coast westward naturally headed toward the western reaches of Pennsylvania because the colony had such a favorable relationship with most of the Indians in the region. Members of the Society of Friends began to appear in the regions west of the Alleghenies in the late 1750's, and in 1773 two Quaker missionaries, Zebulon Heston and John Parrish, made a successful journey into the Indian country of the 0hio Valley. Also, a number of Friends left Virginia and North Carolina during the Revolutionary War in order to escape the violence of the war in those colonies.

As more and more families began to move from their quarterly meeting districts, Quaker leaders began to worry that the migrants would lose contact with the Society of Friends. The Hopewell, Virginia, Monthly Meeting sent an investigating committee into western Pennsylvania in 1780 to discover how many Friends were then living in the area. When it was revealed that over 150 Friends had migrated to the locate near present Centerville (on U. S. Route 40), the Hopewell Monthly Meeting in 1782 approved the organization of Westland Preparative Meeting as the first established meeting of Friends west of the Alleghenies. Three years later, Westland Monthly Meeting and Redstone Preparative Meeting (near Brownsville) were established, and in 1797 the communities were authorized to hold Redstone Quarterly Meetings alternately at the two sites. Thus, the Quakers had become rather firmly situated west of the Alleghenies by 1800. Even more rapid settlement in the Ohio Country was soon to follow, due to the awakening of the Quaker consciousness concerning slavery in the southern part of the North American colonies.

http://www.drwilliams.org/iDoc