This is the Old Choestoe Baptist Cemetery in Union County, Georgia. A couple days ago this blog had the New Choestoe Baptist Church Cemetery and as I said I have met some of the inhabitants; not so with the Old Choestoe Cemetery. This grave yard has the bones of the first generation of the Choestoe Community, and a generation or two beyond. They were before my time.
At the Dyer – Souther Reunion I got directions on how to get to the Old Choestoe Cemetery. The directions were simple enough: You just get on the gravel road that separates the church and the new cemetery and stay on it until you see it. The gravel road was probably close to a mile long, maybe slightly over or under and it was all woods on both sides of the road. No houses, no barns, pastures, or anything but woods.
Mostly with these tombstones and stone markers I will just show the picture and if you are more interested you can click on to make the image larger to read the markings. I'm trying to match them up with my data too.
This is my distant almost- relative* Micajah Clark Dyer’s grave. Micajah was an inventor. He contrived a way to harness power and had his own electrical power before anyone else in Union County had it. He invented many other things, including a flying machine that worked that he had patented in 1874, which was long before the Wright Brothers tried their flying machine (1900-1903). On the marker itself is the patent number and a couple of the technical drawings. Click on it and see.
*Two of Micajah C. Dyer’s children married Hunter relatives.
Here lie the two of the first people in Choestoe when it was opened for pioneering in 1832, Thompson and Cecilia Self Collins. They are not related, but their son Iven is an in-law. The big tombstone is genealogist’s dream, not only does it tell when they were married, but a list of their children and when they married.
On the edge of the far end of the cemetery is the edge of a farm. Notice the Blue Ridge Mountains as the backdrop?
