Catching History While Geocaching

Let's explore a cemetery together.

This was the first day of my trip to Davenport to meet up with my friend. I was up by Paris, Missouri and catching a few fines in the area. One of them was at the founders cemetery. And of course, I walked around because I love seeing the history of the community reflected in these gravestones.

This being a much older cemetery, a lot of the graves had fallen and broken stones, but you could tell that somebody had come in and sorted things out a bit and trying to raise some of the sunken ones back up to ground level.

This memorial though really caught my attention. It is a memorial to three wives. Jacintra was married in 1841 and died in 1842. Mary A was married in 1845 and died in 1845. And and Anne was married in 1851 and died in 1853. Their husband, daniel, died in 1897 after having married Mary J in 1856. She lived until 1911. She and her husband are buried next to each other other. I believe they have one child, Ida.

I’m going to file this in the ‘to be researched’ part of my geocaching journey. Check in with local history centers and the Missouri Historical Society. Ancestry.com brought up Daniel’s obituaries - he was a huge landowner in the area and was ‘sorely missed.’ He fought as a Union private in the 1st Regiment Missouri Light Artillery unit.

I find nothing substantial about his first three wives. And about Mary J, the fourth one, just a mention in the obituaries and her gravestone. Frankly, I'm more interested in the first three wives. Did they die in child bed? What sort of homes did they live in? I think I remember that Ann was born in Monroe County in 1825, although it might not have been Monroe county at the time. Missouri became a state in 1821, but that doesn't mean the counties were all laid out by then. Things to check.

I did find the geocache. GC8ZGM4 for those of you who are interested.

Additional images of graves and a cool bit of fencing.