Dogwood Dispatches – Vintage sewing patterns, historic cookery & more
Description: Discovering the ancestors of Jesse and Vanessa Sykes Crews
Buckingham County deed books contain only one known reference to Martha Bryant McFadden. On the 12 th of November 1878, Martha purchased her family cemetery for $50 from William M. and Fanny Perkins:
“… eight acres of land situated in the County of Buckingham and state of Virginia adjoining Frank Ware, Wm. McFadden and others, the said acres to include the family graveyard of the family of Martha A. McFadden who was Martha Bryant and being compactly situated around it, the said eight acres to be cut off at the expense of the said McFadden from the Bryant tract so as to make the graveyard as near in the center as may be practicable.” (1)
The purchase was made almost eight months after the drowning deaths of Martha’s husband, Allen McFadden, son James McFadden and grandson, James Woody. Newspaper accounts in the weeks following their deaths indicate their bodies were not recovered. Martha’s purchase of the cemetery strongly suggests that their bodies were later found and interred in the family burying grounds.
Dogwood Dispatches – Vintage sewing patterns, historic cookery & more