A web site called Cemetery Census lists well over 100, maybe 150, family cemeteries in Carteret County, North Carolina (county seat Beaufort; largest town Morehead City). The one in the pictures below is on Cedar Island, an unincorporated community (pop. 350 or so) at the extreme eastern end of Carteret county. It's variously called "the Lupton family cemetery" or "the Day-Daniels cemetery". Many of the grave markers are carved wooden planks. One section of the cemetery seems to be devoted to the graves of children who died not long after birth. The cemetery is made up of some 75 graves dating back as far as the early 1800s.
Wow, that's amazing, to see such old gravestones, and know that the cemetery started so far back. Imagine what life was like in Carteret County in the early 1800s!
ReplyDeleteThe town of Beaufort was founded in 1710, so Europeans were there pretty early.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding!? Wow!
DeleteHi Ken! I'm a Francophile who enjoys reading your marvelous blog (after having found it via the blog formerly known as "Bob and Sophie's French Adventure"). Love the pictures and stories. Your recent posts are very interesting as my paternal grandmother Eloise Styron was born on Cedar Island, Carteret, NC. Family genealogy is also a passion and I'm related to both of the Days whose gravestones shown in your pictures!! My great-grandfather Hezekiah Styron was ship's captain... (he married a Lupton lady). The world is small and wonderful:) Passez une bonne journee, Shari
ReplyDeleteKen- Enjoy your blog, and am a Francophile. Also, have many ancestors from the Outer Banks of NC, including Cedar Island, Carteret CO (Luptons, Nelsons, Styrons, Simpsons, Days, Fulfords, Fulchers, Bells, Gillikins, Gaskills, etc..). Keep up the lovely posts:) Shari
ReplyDeleteHello Shari, sorry it took me a day or two to realized that your comments were not being published immediately. They are published now, and I thank you for them. Did you ever live in Carteret County? Do you live in N.C.? Sounds like you've spent a lot of time there. I'm not sure when my Willis family settled in Morehead. They probably came from Down East. The other big families in Morehead were and are named Lewis, Piner, Salter, Mason, etc. I really miss my annual trips to Morehead. Covid stopped them, and I'm getting old enough now that travel is not so easy.
DeleteHi Ken, Sorry for taking several days to respond to you. I live in Maryland, but have made several trips to the Outer Banks, and am an active genealogist. Am sure that we share some DNA as my ancestors intermarried with the Willis, Piner, Lewis, Mason, Shackleford, Taylor, Parris, etc... families. One of my 5th great grandmothers is Mary Salter (born 1758 Craven, North Carolina; death 1826, Hunting Quarters, Carteret, (daughter of Lt. William Joseph Salter and Eve Smith) who married William Joseph Gaskill. And, the Willis (aka Williston) ancestors are prevalent in the records! Many of those who first came to NC colony were seeking religious freedom, but they were also transported because of criminal convictions, or for taking an unpopular political stance against the prevailing powers. Some also were part of other early settlements in Virginia (Jamestown, Isle of Wight, etc...), and wanted more land with fewer nosy neighbors. Quakers and other protestants (including what would become Baptists) fled Yorkshire, Wales, etc... to settle in the interior of NC, and the barrier islands of Eastern NC. The more I dig, the more there is to learn about the brave people who ventured to the new world:) Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme:)
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