Soon after my last post about visiting Shelton Laurel, a Facebook friend sent me a message asking if I'd like to see the graves where the victims of the massacre are buried.
Of course I would! So yesterday afternoon I met Patricia Shelton Wallin, her father Casey Shelton, and her daughter and daughter's boyfriend and we went to see the graves. We tried the quick way but the people (not from here or they'd have been more accommodating) who own the property just adjacent to the old burying place wouldn't let us walk the few steps through their property. so we went in the back way, through a friendlier neighbor's property.
It involved a little hiking through poison ivy/oak and brambles. Mr. Shelton led the way, beating back the briars and when we came to a steep bank, the boyfriend went ahead of me to give me a hand up. I was so glad for the new knee! There's no way I could have managed this last year.
This isn't a maintained cemetery -- just lots of very old graves, some with no more marker than a field stone at head and foot.
Other simple homemade gravestones were probably added later.
The dates remind me that Shelton Laurel was settled by veterans of the American Revolutionary War, most of whom claimed land grants for their service. Roderick, David, and James Shelton were some of the first -- names that reappear among the victims of the massacre.
Two more recent markers give the names of the victims of the massacre . . .
Some accounts say they are all buried here -- others suggest that this may not be so . ..
The deeper I go in research, the more inconsistent the stories are. . .
Good thing I'm writing fiction . . .
It was a wonderful bit of serendipity that led Patricia to offer to show me the graves . . .
But that wasn't the end of our ramble nor was it the end of serendipity.
I'll tell you in a later post about the poet and White Rock Church.