Captina Friends Cemetery

Standing on the northwest corner of the cemetery, the north being closest to the creek. The creek is down over the hill to the left. This is looking back east, towards Ohio SR 26.

On August 14, 2009, I set out to go Cemetery Hopping. I prepared in the weeks prior by entering several years of geneology correspondance into Family Tree Maker, and printing out geneology reports, going to the Belmont County Engineers website to find out who surrounding property owners were for private cemeteries, discussing places I was going and people I was looking for on geneology forums and on the phone, and by printing out maps and finding general whereabouts on a Belmont County, OH map. I had 3 cemeteries planned, but visited 5 total. Since it was prime haymaking day for my dear husband, Bruce, I took our 3 y/o, Eilidh with me. I fully expected her to self destruct early on, but instead, she had A BLAST. She even posed for me to introduce one long researched and long awaited CAPTINA FRIENDS CEMETERY, found very close to the corner of Captina Highway/SR 149 and SR 26, not very far south of Barnesville, OH. It is known in military records as the OLD BROWN CEMETERY or locally in more modern times by the family who most recently lived on the property known to the locals as the BENSON CEMETERY.

The entrance sits within sight of SR 149, with public access technically from SR 26 along the small power lines. However, I found a trailer sitting right on SR 26 with a "For Sale by Owner" sign in front. It appeared to be a hunting retreat for someone. Indeed, when I called the number on the sign, the owner lived in Akron. He said it included 74 acres, and he was asking $130,000. I wasn't in the market, but seeing as how I knew several people very interested in this cemetery, and seeing that it was an old Quaker site, it seemed a wonderful place for a Friends retreat, or for some Friend to own, just for its spiritual connection with a Meeting of the past.

There is a connection most people don't understand about many Quakers who still practice after the silence way of worship. They are sometimes spiritually bonded with the past, and the places in which that past took place. Captina Friends Meeting quit holding worship in 1836. My interest in it originally arose when my Methodist paternal grandmother left handwritten notes that one of her great aunts was married to a Smith in Captina Friends Meeting. My mother (other side of the family completely) is a Quaker, and I know of many, many Quaker Smiths through growing up being involved in Friends circles. One of my childhood playmates came from a line of them. Captina Friends Meeting records have been lost, to my understanding. Losing records is an unusual occurrence for Friends. They take notes, keep journals and pass down to their descendants notes on nearly everything.

The records may be found someday, but who knows where? They could be stored away in someone's attic, or in a back corner of an archive at a college like Swarthmore near Philadelphia, PA, or Guilford in North Carolina. I've known a few Quaker scholars on forums who frequent such places and find such suprises. Or they may be ruined and gone.

There were only about 6 legible stones in Captina Friends Cemetery. They were all but one military stones, which in a Friends Cemetery is not unusual, but their legibility in contrast to other grave markers was, indeed. At that point in history, prior to 1836, Friends did not use gravestones as we know them today, if they used markers at all. It was considered worldly. I remember hearing stories of graveyard trustees removing gravestones. I have to deduce that either the family or the military has thus placed these stones. One person who gave me directions to the cemetery was a veteran.

The stones were:

Wallace Reeves, COL 186th Ohio Inf

Milton Reeves, COL 129th Ohio Inf

S Hoopes 186th Ohio Inf

Mary Ellen (was all I could read)

J.R. & L. Catton, Died (illegible) 1819 possibly

Simeon Breech, Shot and Killed in a gunfight, birth, 23 Aug, 1782, death 30 May 1849

Abraham Gray, PVT, 3 Regt, Ulster County Militia, Rev. War, 1754, 1846 (newest stone)

I did about 10 hours of looking-up today. Samuel Hoopes was mustered for the Civil War at age 22 on 2/21/1865, and was killed 3/23/1865 in Louisville, KY.

Simeon Breech was in a gunfight as law enforcement between two people, as the story goes, and neither one survived.

Abraham Gray was born to Louis M. and Loretta Marie Ann Gray in NY; married Sheryl Marie (uk last name) and had children John, Peter 18 Jun 1787 Ulster County, Benjamin 1788 and Samuel 1791.

I could not find any information on the Catton, nor the two Reeves.

George Wetzel, Lewis Wetzel's father, was buried at the head of Captina Island which sits in the Ohio River near the mouth in April 1782 after being hit in the chest with a bullet during a hunting trip with his two sons. "That Dark and Bloody River," Allan W. Eckert.

The Battle of Captina, according to Martin Baker, took place in 1794, a full account which can be found at the website of a nearby bed&breakfast:

http://strattonhouse.com/index.php?section=history&content=31135103

Sometime after 1794 to 1836 spanned the possible existance of Captina Friends Meeting. That was about 40 years. Walking through this graveyard on a sunny, comfortable August day in 2009 gave me a spiritual feeling, a bond with my ancestors and relatives who may or may not have been buried there. You can't tell where the meetinghouse might have once stood. But ginseng grew at the base of one of the illegible gravestones, in defiance of its once massive harvest. It is a beautiful place. I hope that whomever the owner sells it to will appreciate its significance in the history of this area of Ohio.