The biggest surprise was the Merrell burial ground at the old home place on Old Mountain Road in Randolph County. This photograph of the 1813 marker for my ggggggreat grandmother was taken there thirty years ago by family historian C. Phelps Merrell. The mountain top area was described as beautiful and covered with periwinkle.
Other family members reported that the stones were pretty much gone now. The old cemetery was supposedly in a woods behind a home. I checked Google earth for that address and found a trailer.
I was expecting to find this trailer all alone on a country road. When I got there, I could see where the trailer had been, but the lot is vacant now. I was able to roam to my heart's content but I didn't find anything that resembled a family cemetery, just a lot of refuse and downed trees.
Although the neighboring lots had trailers or ramshackle homes, fancy subdivisions came within a half mile of the old homeplace. Just a mile away, Old Mountain Road meets Finch Farm Road in one of those fancy new roundabouts. It's easy to see that the fancy subdivisions are moving up the mountain and it won't be long until a beautiful home is on that site.
When Daniel Merrell buried his mother there, he no doubt imagined the farm would be in the family forever. But his sons moved on and the stones crumbled with time. Hopefully the periwinkle will bloom again.
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