AN ADVENTUROUS SEARCH FOR LOST ANCESTORS GRAVES
As time passes and family members die off they often take with them the family stories and the history of how we got here. As children grow up they often move away and set roots in a new location and each generation becomes more distant to an area’s first settlers. Eventually, most of our ancestors’ names are completely forgotten and their graves become lost to the fields and the forests. Since the dawn of humanity one of the things that has remained constant is a person’s longing to be remembered. Those of us that seek out, find, and celebrate our ancestors obtain a spiritual fulfillment that connects them to the past. This is one of those stories.
We teamed up with several descendants of Doctor and Reverend Christopher Clark (1754-1830), Sharon Graves, the President of the Madison County Historical Society, and Mr. Tom Black, a descendant of the former property owners, to explore and search for the long-lost graves of the Clark family. Clark was an immigrant from England, first coming to Virginia, and he later moved to Kentucky in the late 1700s. He was an important man in his time performing many marriages and saving lives as a doctor in the frontier wilderness. His home place was near the now abandoned town of Milford, which was first county seat of Madison County, Kentucky. He built a log cabin and a farm on the location. Later another cabin was added and eventually a large farm house was expanded around the cabins. The house was abandoned in the 1990s and has now unfortunately fallen into ruins. The logs from the original cabins can still be seen as the walls crumble away.
One of the descendants on the journey, Becky Clark-Brothers visited this homesite of her 5th-great-grandparents in the 1980s. She remembered going to a small family cemetery on the location but unfortunately today no one else knows where the cemetery is. Ms. Brothers reached out to us at Family Tree Nuts to inform us that the group was going to be visiting the farm, the original cabins and search for the lost cemetery. We were happy to join the party to document the entire experience of the group. We hopped fences, trekked through muddy dirt paths, tall grass fields, wooded areas, thickets, and more, in search of the long-lost graves. We also visited the abandoned house and studied the log cabins inside it.
The search for the graves was an arduous one. The group had aerial maps of the area which they used to search out logical spots as to where the cemetery might be. After a few hours the party started to grow weary and was about to head back but just about ten minutes before the call was about to be made to pack it in, one of the members of the party named Cathy Clark-Webb, who is from near Memphis, Tennessee, walked off to herself for a few minutes to pray. Cathy prayed for divine intervention so that the ancestors could help direct them to their graves because her group so desperately wanted to honor them. Moments later, Sharon began to shout that she had found something…
At the descendants walked the approximately 100 yards to where Sharon was shouting from, excitement was welling up in them. They were afraid to get too excited, maybe it was just another clue, maybe it was nothing, but just maybe it was what they were longing to find. As they gathered around where Sharon was standing, she proclaimed, “here is the grave of Doctor and Reverend Christopher Clark”. The following moments were filled of tears and excitement. They had discovered the long-lost graves of their ancestors!
The party quickly began to clear the area of overgrowth, vines, and debris. They used water bottles and paper towels to wipe the mud off of the fallen stones so they could be read. Soon they found the grave of William Clark, Christopher’s son, and the 4th Great-Grandfather of Becky and Cathy. A few other headstones were found as was a large rock slab that was once likely a grave cover. Trees were growing through the graves making them barely noticeable and had the party not made this journey in the present day, the graves would have disappeared forever into the wilderness.
They had done it. They discovered, documented and literally saved the memory of their ancestors that lived a quarter century before. Prayers were said, pictures were taken, a video was produced, and this story will help to ensure that these folks form our history are never forgotten again. Be sure to watch the video below of this rewarding adventure.
– Col. Russ Carson, Jr, Founder, Family Tree Nuts