Trinity II

Here are a few more shots taken while I was wandering around the graveyard at Trinity Episcopal Church.

As usual, I must digress for a minute and confess that when I typed the word "graveyard," I had to ask myself (a) where I pulled that word from because I hardly hear it any more and (b) what the difference is, if any, between the words graveyard and cemetery.

Although we may never know the answer to (a), the answer to (b) surprised me. I think most of the surprise was due to the fact that I actually selected the word that was most appropriate, at least according to Wikipedia (which is never wrong):

"A graveyard from Old English graf "pit"; yairden "garden, open place") is any place set aside for long-term burial of the dead, with or without monuments such as headstones.

In countries with a Christian tradition it is usually located near and administered by a church. From the early 19th century, new burying grounds were frequently founded as cemeteries, which are burying grounds that are separate from a church or parish.".

I think it is safe to say that nowadays the words are interchangeable, but I am glad to know my use of an antiquated word is OK since we are talking about tombstones near the church.

Let's return now to Trinity, shall we?

Although it isn't an overwhelmingly large lot, there are lots of graves here.

And even though most of the graves are decades (and some well over a century) old, the ground was soft, like a cushion, and gave way in  many places.  Almost as if the graves were recently dug.  

Except they weren't.  

Also, it was frigid the day I was here, so if anything the ground should have been solid.

But it wasn't.

Some of the tombstones are so old the names are difficult to decipher.

As I meandered about, I stopped to notice the windows.  These were particularly interesting.

(Did you know the first known use of the word "meander" was approximately 1612?  CBW must be a reincarnated early colonist.  An early colonist who ambles about aimlessly in real life just as much as she does in her writing.)


Returning to the windows, this one looked familiar.

Click here for a post about Grace Providence Church down Mobjack that contains a photo of another window featuring an anchor very similar to this one. Although I remember the pictures from that particular post, I did not remember most of what I wrote. And I have to say that silly post made me laugh reading it two years later--the Walmart part in particular.

Isn't it wonderful when you can entertain yourself and make yourself laugh? This sort of talent comes in very handy when you live in an isolated place like Mathews, which has limited options for entertainment. Even if you aren't considered entertaining by others, at least you can entertain yourself. Also, do you see how I reference a blog post about Grace Providence Church and then go on to say that the part that made me laugh had to do with Walmart? Do you know how far apart the topic of Walmart is from a church? Have we even talked about Trinity in this post?

Notice the orb in the upper left corner.  A ghost perhaps?

If I were retired and/or independently wealthy and/or able to sustain myself and family without having to work, I would spend a great deal of my time wandering around places like this and writing silly blog posts and nosing around in the library and the public records trying to piece together a story for each place.

As it stands, however, I must keep my day job.  So I don't have a lot of time to wander, explore, and play do research.

But I can still write silly blog posts.

The End.

Trinity

A while back I began some informal research on my family's property, which led me to spend an entire afternoon nosing around the county clerk's office.  I was definitely probably supposed to be cleaning the house or doing laundry, but I felt certain my time would be better spent researching deeds and wills.

Certain.

The long story short is I learned, not surprisingly to me, that our property once belonged to the estate known as Clifton, which is right across the cove from us by water and right around the corner by road, within reasonable walking distance of where we live.

While poring through all the records, I swear I saw where someone in the line of people I was researching was buried at Trinity Episcopal Church, shown here.  I wrote down about ten pages of notes in a binder, and when I got home tossed the binder in the corner never to pick it up again until last night.

I am highly proficient at starting a project but rarely able to finish one.  I'm also exceptionally gifted at coming up with ideas for projects.  Implementation, however, presents quite the problem.  As a result my life is one great big To Do list that is never completed.

Anyway.

The primary name associated with Clifton is Hudgins, which not coincidentally is also the name of the area in which we live. This group at Clifton is responsible for every single last a long line of Hudginses all around Mathews.

The other name that stood out was someone by the name of Christian, who married one of the Hudgins girls and subsequently inherited a piece of the Clifton family estate--i.e. the property on which we now live.

All this is a very exhausting long way of saying this:  The other day I stopped at Trinity because I was dillydallying happened to remember I wanted to look at the graves.  Since it had been so long since I'd done the research, I figured I'd just look for anyone by the name of Hudgins or Christian (the only two names I remember) on the tombstones.

I didn't see a single Hudgins and not one Christian.

Last night, knowing I was going to put up these pictures, I decided to pull out my binder of notes. As it turns out, most of the people I am looking for are buried either on the Clifton property or in the Haynes cemetery, which is across from Mathews Chapel down near Hesse plantation.  I couldn't find a reference to Trinity.

I swear I remember reading that someone connected with that Clifton family was buried here though.

Oh well.

A church on this same site is referenced in very early vestry books of Kingston Parish.  According to History and Progress, Mathews County, Virginia, the books contain "records of fourteen meetings, dating from ...1679 to 1725...When these records began, there were already two church buildings in the parish, referred to as the upper and the lower churches, or sometimes as the new and the old churches...the book reports only the meetings of the upper, or new, church, which stood on the site of the present Trinity."

(The lower church referenced was on the site of the present day Christ Church.)

So, this property has been affiliated with a church from the very beginning of  the history of Mathews.

In conclusion, Trinity has deep roots in this county, and Chesapeake Bay Woman needs to remember to reference her notes prior to coming up with excuses to wander around graveyards and avoid work striking out in search of the graves of people once affiliated with her property. She also needs to write more legibly, because most of those 10 pages of notes are chicken scratch difficult to decipher.

Tomorrow I'll post a few more pictures of this quaint church.

Sorry for all the side trips, but straying off course seems to be another forte. Thanks for coming along on this longer-than-really-necessary excursion today.