Journal to a Muse

Father(s), Where art thou?

This morning we went to the County genealogical society to see if we could get more information on Hubby's GGF who settled in New Philadelphia, Ohio. We did!
Washington Edie was one of the sons of John Edie, Sr. Regrettably, there isn't as much information about him as there is about John Edie, Jr., who apparently had offspring who filled in and recorded some of the gaps in the local histories. But we DID find out where he and his wife, Mary, were buried and we did manage to compare maps, plat map photographs and deed records to locate the property he bought from John, Sr.

He was buried at the Jerusalem Reform Cemetery.
The first thing I noticed when we got there was how sweet the grass smelled. This is NOT Texas St. Augustine or Bermuda. I'd read about "sweet smelling grass" before, but never experienced it. It was somewhere between jasmine and apple pie, I think.

Secondly, if you want your head stone to last, pay up and get the granite. The other stones leach ores, disintegrate and even seem to melt.

Third, was that this cemetery has been in continuous use from the very early 1800's if not before. And yet there were two recent monuments (granite, for sure!) that had names on them which we later connected to two of the big dairy barns on the same road.

We found Mary Edie's grave stone first... surrounded by names we didn't recognize. A few yards away, there was Washington Edie. Do you suppose that originally there was no one between them?
Then we went hunting for the land. We had assumed it was a farm... but it was REALLY hilly. The only reference we had was the plat number, and a map with some roads and creeks on it. With the help of the Ohio Atlas, and Google maps, we made a pretty educated guess about where it was. (People may build new streets and houses, but the land contours and creeks pretty much stay the same.)
May Valley aka T332 branches off from CR 121. At the fork is Stucky Hill, which would seem to run along the West side of Washington Edie's property. I don't have a sense of what 50 acres looks like. But we followed the trail in sort of a C-shape along a creek and found these old buildings among some newer houses and barns.

There was even a covered bridge: Indian Run Bridge, that was only wide enough for foot or possibly cart traffic. I'll put that at Flickr.