On and off for several years I have set about trying to locate what I thought may be a single burial location for a large chunk of my family based in Daviess County, Kentucky. After further research, rather than one cemetery I now believe I am looking for two or more separate cemeteries. As I discussed in a post earlier this summer (http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2019/09/2019-genealogy-road-trip-kin-tucky.html), I may have finally found one of them. The others may be all but gone for good, but it is one of my (many) genealogical missions to try to find them. I have decided compile the information I have gathered and the theories I have devised in hopes that it will help me link me with others interested in this cause or those that can help further it.
My 4th great grandparents Amos and Susannah Phillips Riley resided in Daviess County from sometime between 1811-1814 until their deaths (Amos in 1838, Susan in 1843). They reared a large family, and came from large families themselves. Many of Susannah's Phillips relatives also resided in Daviess County. Amos Riley has been a rather renowned figure in the area--in his day for his wealth, and today for his association with Josiah Henson, AKA "The Real Uncle Tom". I have written previously on the family's connections to Henson, including here: http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2012/11/amos-riley-jr-and-josiah-henson-real.html.
As wealthy and renowned as they were--and as well-off as many of their progeny were--I am certain that at one point Amos, Susanna, and their close family members had graves marked with headstones. Today, almost no graves for their immediate descendants can be located. Their son Camden Riley's stone in the Rosehill-Elmwood Cemetery in Owensboro is pretty much the lone exception. I believe there was a Riley family burial ground at one point, and as I said in my above-linked post from this previous summer, I believe it may have been located.
I descend from a daughter of Amos Riley named Elton Riley. She married Howard Taylor in 1833 in Daviess County. Like her family growing up, the Taylor family had plenty of money, but again, marked graves for the majority of this family have been elusive. The lone exception is their son Amos Riley Taylor who is buried in St. Louis. I originally believed that the Taylors were likely buried wherever the Rileys were, but when I realized that the Taylors lived in another part of Daviess County, it seemed unlikely their remains would have been taken that far for burial. It is far more likely that there is a Taylor family burial ground near where they resided.
As I discovered in compiling information for my above-linked blog about my trip to Kentucky this summer, it turns out the Taylor family lived near Sorgho, Kentucky rather than near the Yelvington (now called Maceo) area where the Riley family resided. When the aforementioned Amos Riley Taylor returned to his home county to give a speech, the newspaper stated he was born and reared near Sorgho. I was not familiar with this information or that town name, so I decided to look further into that area.
From the Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, Kentucky), 23 Jun 1908, Page 5. Courtesy of Newspapers.com.
By far the best resource I have for narrowing down the area where the Taylors resided is an 1876 atlas of Daviess County, Kentucky. It can be viewed in its entirety and in high resolution thanks to the David Rumsey Map Collection, here: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/view/all/what/County%20Atlas/where/Daviess%20County%20(Ky.)/when/1876/. This same atlas also comes in handy for locating the Riley cemetery later on.
On page 46 of this atlas we can view the "Lower Town" district, which is the area southwest of Owensboro. It was largely considered to be a part of the Owensboro area, as most of the people and businesses in the area still had Owensboro as their post office (per the 1870 Census), but it was not in the city itself and so was put together as its own district. This area includes the Sorgho community. A plot for Levi Taylor is shown to be nearby a plot belonging to Camden Riley (brother of Elton, son of Amos) as well as James Rudd whose daughter Anna married Amos Riley Taylor.
Portion of Lower Town map from 1876 Daviess County atlas. Courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection. Levi Taylor marked red; Camden Riley in blue; James Rudd in green; Sorgho/Sorgho Town in purple. Households marked with white stars will be mentioned in forthcoming paragraphs in reference to Census records and households in the vicinity of the Taylor homestead. The church marked near the C. Riley property is Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, established 1835, with church building built in 1867; that is the point of reference for locating these properties in modern times. Source: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/workspace/handleMediaPlayer?lunaMediaId=RUMSEY~8~1~221896~5505652
At first glance, this would appear to pretty clearly be the area in which Amos Riley Taylor grew up. His brother's, uncle's, and father-in-law's farms are all within a short distance of one another. The Rudd farm is doubly relevant, because Nancy Rudd was not only Amos's wife, but his cousin. Nancy's mother was Nancy Ann Phillips, a daughter of Thomas Phillips, who was a brother of Susanna Phillips Riley. So Amos and Nancy were 2nd cousins.
When I first started analyzing the location of the Taylor farm, I utilized Census records to show whether or not they stayed put in the same area from the time of Howard's death until the 1876 atlas was published. Now that I have examined deed records proving they did in fact stay in the same place during that timeframe, the information on the census records are pretty much moot. But they do contain some mildly helpful supplemental information so I am leaving them in place.
1850 Census Notes:
- The Howard Taylor family resides next to a James McAllister. They are on page 116 of this Census.
- No other noteworthy immediate neighbors, but on the same page of their Census record is the family of Colston (spelled Colson) Crabtree.
- Colston's mother and siblings are on page 120. His mother was Sarah, widow of Isaac Crabtree, and among the children in her household is Eldred Crabtree.
- Other noteworthy families on pages 116-120 include multiple Winstead families and a Calhoon/Calhoun household. You can see from the above map that those families are still in this vicinity by 1876.
- Worth noting that Elton Riley's sister Myra Riley Windsor (widowed at this time) is also nearby.
1860 Census Notes:
- By this year, the household enumerated adjacent to the Elton Riley household is that of Sarah Crabtree, widow of Isaac.
- Myra Riley Windsor has passed away by this time, and her two children by her first husband are residing with the Taylors.
- William Harrell is nearby as well with two more Crabtrees in his household. You'll see the J. Harrell household with a white star above; it is shown next to the Levi Taylor farm.
- On the next page from the Taylor household, you'll find the eldest daughter of the family, Susan, now married to her cousin Thomas Phillips and with several children.
- Next door to Susan is a John McAllister, who may or may not be a relative of the James McAllister who was enumerated just before the Taylors in 1850. That same James McAllister is now two pages over (p. 51) from Susan (p. 49) and one from Elton (p. 50).
- Homes were enumerated by census takers going door to door. They did not always go in the same order as the census taker did the decade previous, or there could be new homes or roads between neighbors that weren't there 10 years ago. The Taylors' continued proximity to the Crabtree and McAllister families, among others, indicates they remained on their same farm during this time.
- By this time, Levi Taylor had purchased two plots of land from his mother near Yelvington that she had inherited from her father, Amos Riley. Census records showing him in the proximity of his uncle Camden, who lived in that area, indicate that he was living in the Yelvington area at this time. Once his mother passed, he returned to the Sorgho area and sold the land around Yelvington.
- Lastly, on page 48, you will find Jonathan Gibson Taylor. I only note this because it is important to emphasize that despite the assumption of multiple generations of researchers in this area, there have been NO ties established between Jonathan Gibson Taylor and the family of Howard Taylor. Many have them listed as brothers, but as their records plainly show, Jonathan and his family were of Kentucky, and Howard and his family were from Virginia (now West Virginia). Howard was one of five brothers: John, Charles, Rawleigh, and Allen, all sons of Levi Taylor. This is bore out in numerous documents. Just because their surnames were both Taylor and they clearly lived very near one another does NOT mean they are related. You wouldn't automatically assume two Smith or Johnson neighbors were related; don't assume these two were either.
1870 Census Notes:
- Levi Taylor now has control of the family farm, and the family enumerated immediately after him is of the same family from the year before. Rather than Sally Crabtree and her daughter Lydia, the Crabtree farm now belongs to Eldred Crabtree, Sally's aforementioned son. You'll see that E. Crabtree's property is immediately adjacent to Levi Taylor in the 1876 atlas.
- You will also find William and Samuel Calhoun/Calhoon enumerated nearby the Taylor farm, and the Calhoons appear several times near Levi Taylor in the 1876 atlas.
In order to further determine that the land Levi Taylor resided on was the land his parents farmed before him, I examined as many Daviess County deeds involving Howard and Elton Taylor and their children as I could locate with the incredibly helpful staff at the Daviess County Library. I cannot sing their praises enough. Christina Clary, Savannah Warren, and Ryan Tooley are all librarians in the Kentucky Room at the library and all have helped me immensely in gathering the resources I have needed and I am forever indebted to them.
The records found yielded a number of transactions showing Howard's estate and later Elton's estate dividing property among their children, and later corresponding deeds where those heirs sold their portions to neighbors surrounding Levi Taylor in the 1876 atlas. Not all the numbers line up exactly with what the atlas shows. I think the atlas was likely incomplete or imperfect based on the information I collected, but it still gives a good general idea. I located enough land records that when combined with the Census records and the 1876 map, we can get a good picture of where Howard Taylor resided in Daviess County, both as a minor and as an adult until his death.
Here is a summary of the noteworthy transactions involving Howard Taylor and his heirs.
1834 - Howard T. Taylor and Allen G. Taylor deed 300 acres from James Madison.
1840 - Howard T. Taylor deeds 74 acres from Anna Tennant and her children.
1841 - Howard T. Taylor is granted ownership of Allen's half of their co-owned 300 acres after Allen's death. This brings the family land holdings around the main family farm to 374 acres.
1855 - Elton Taylor is granted 125 acres from Howard's estate as her dower tract.
1856 - Susan Phillips receives 33 acres from her father's estate.
1856 - Elton Taylor deeds 59 acres from her niece Prudence Price and her husband, Robert. This land bordered the main Taylor farm and brings the Taylor land holdings around the main farm to 433 acres minus the 33 granted to Susan.
1857 - Elton Taylor deeds tracts of 87.5 and 104 acres which she inherited from her father Amos Riley to Levi Taylor. Those lands are near Yelvington.
1862 - Susan Phillips deeds the 33 acres she inherited from her father's estate to her brother-in-law, Clark S. Phillips, and his wife, Thetis Jones Phillips.
1863 - Howard Taylor's estate is further divided. Levi received 38 acres. Alice Clements receives 37 acres. The remaining land is being held until Amos and John return from the Civil War and Richard and Howard come of age.
1864 - Elton Taylor deeds 4 7/8 acres from Clark and Thetis Phillips, being a portion of the 33 acres they bought from Susan.
1866 - Thomas Jones deeds four adjoining land plots from Clark and Thetis Phillips totaling 194 acres. This includes the remaining 28 1/8 acres of the 33 acres the Phillipses bought from Susan.
1866 - Howard Taylor's estate is further divided. Amos receives 37 acres. John has died in the war, but his heirs are entitled to 50 acres.
1866 - Susan Phillips sells her rights to a portion of Elton's dower lands to her brother Amos.
1866 - Alice Clements and her husband W. H. Clements deed 38 acres from Levi Taylor, that land being the portion of his father's estate he inherited.
1866 - Alice Clements and her husband W. H. Clements deed 37 acres from Amos Taylor, that land being the portion of his father's estate he inherited.
1866 - Elton Taylor's will is probated. Richard and Howard receive 70 acres together. Amos receives 57 3/4, including her sister Susan's portion. Alice receives 50 acres. Levi receives 47 acres. Susan receives 10 acres, being her portion of her brother John's allotment of their father's estate. Each of the siblings' portions includes 10 acres apiece from John's allotment.
Note: Mathematically, all but 59.125 acres of the Taylors' 433 total acres have been divided amongst the Taylor heirs at this point. The plot for Richard and Howard would turn out to be 69.5 acres meaning the total left is 59.625. I have not found a recording of the transaction, but at some point in subsequent years, those roughly 60 acres were deeded to Howard, with Richard retaining sole ownership of the 69.5 acres they had held jointly.
1869 - Mathias Gough deeds 47 acres from Levi Taylor, being the land he inherited from his mother's estate. The 47 acres of M. Gough can be found in the 1876 atlas southwest of the Levi Taylor plot.
1870 - Amos Riley Hathaway and James Alsop deed 60 acres from W. H. and Alice Clements, being a portion of the land divided from Howard Taylor's estate. Alice had inherited 87 acres from her parents and bought another 75 from her brothers, so she still held 102 acres of her parents' land after this sale.
1871 - Joseph Carlin and T. Clark deed 10 acres from the heirs of Susan Phillips, deceased, being the 10 acres she received as her portion of John's allotment of their parents' estate.
1873 - Jesse Gregory deeds 102.5 acres from W. H. & Alice Clements, being the remaining Taylor lands they held. Notice the discrepancy of a 1/2 acre between what the deeds say she should own (102) and he amount of land she sold (102.5). Gregory's 102.5 acres can be located southwest of the Levi Taylor farm on the 1876 atlas.
1873 - Levi Taylor deeds 57 3/4 acres from Amos Taylor, being the land he inherited from his mother's estate. Levi also bought Amos's claim to 1/5 portion of their brother Richard's estate.
1873 - Levi Taylor deeds 60 acres from Howard V. Taylor, being the land he received from his parents' estate. Again, I could not locate the deed where ownership of this roughly 60 acre plot passed to Howard, but the deed states it is land he received from the Howard [T.] Taylor estate. Levi now holds 117 3/4 acres of Taylor land. Levi also bought Howard's claim to 1/5 portion of their brother Richard's estate.
1875 - Division of Richard Taylor's state. Levi having bought his brothers' portions received 37 acres. Alice got 15.75. The children of Susan Phillips received 16.75.
1875 - Levi Taylor deeds 15.75 acres from W. H. and Alice Clements, being the land Alice received from the division of Richard's estate. Levi now holds a total of 170 1/2 acres of Taylor land.
Only two of the deeds showing the division of Taylor lands included maps. These are the two:
1866 division of Taylor lands. Not all of the lands were being divided at this time, only the labelled portions.
1875 division of J. Richard Taylor's lands. Levi received No. 3, Alice received No. 2 (and sold it to Levi), and No. 1 belonged to the Phillips heirs.
Later, the Phillips heirs would sell their 16.75 acres from Richard Taylor but I'm only going up to 1876 for the purposes of tying these transactions to the 1876 Atlas of Daviess County.
So by 1876, the owners of the divided Taylor lands (433 acres) are as follows, based on the above-referenced deeds:
Levi Taylor - 170.5 acres
Jesse Gregory - 102.5 acres
Mathias Gough - 47 acres
Phillips heirs - 16.75 acres
Carlin & Clark - 10 acres
That leaves the 60 acres sold from Alice to Hathaway and Alsop and the 28+ acres from Susan to the Phillipses to Thomas Jones. Hathaway and Alsop apparently sold the 60 acres to Jesse Moore (I do not have this record) who subsequently sold it to John Heightman (I have the deed index showing this transaction) in 1875. By 1876, Heightman only owns 32 of those acres, so he must have sold the other 28 to the neighboring P. Jacob who had to have acquired some additional land separately.
The acreage sold to Thomas Jones is a mystery. Nothing in the deed index indicates a transaction to J. Williams for the acreage he has in 1876. However, J. Williams is almost certainly James Williams, the husband of Lucy Huston, who was a half-sibling to Thomas Jones. This family is tied to our's via the marriage of George Riley and Susannah Huston. All of their children died without heirs, and upon the death of their last child, the aforementioned Prudence Price(who was Prudence Duke at the time of her death), who sold 59 acres to Elton Taylor in 1856, a portion of her estate was divided amongst her parents' siblings and their heirs. Thomas Jones and Lucy Williams were among those heirs, as were Amos Taylor, Alice Clements, and nearly a score of others. So it would appears Susan's 28+ acres that eventually went to Thomas Jones is among the acreage held by J. Williams directly north of Levi in 1876.
Some additional noteworthy findings:
1. Even though records indicate the Phillips heirs still owed their 16.75 acres in 1876, their plot does not appear on the 1876 atlas.
2. Records show Levi now owns 170.5 combined acres, but the atlas only shows 159.
3. If you combine all of the amounts of land the Taylor heirs inherited it actually adds up to slightly more than 433.
Susan - 33 + 10 = 43
Levi - 38 + 47 = 85
Amos - 37 + 57.75 = 94.75
Alice - 37 + 50 = 87
Richard - 69.5
Howard - 60
439.25 - 4.875 (Given to Susan but then re-purchased by Elton and re-distributed) = 434.375
As indicated above, Howard's 60 acres was closer to 59.625, which brings the total to an even 434. But somewhere in there an extra acre seems to have gotten lumped in with the rest, or possibly some of the other numbers were rounded up slightly in the way that Howard's was rounded up to an even 60.
4. Elton's will states that she has given a house to each of her children except Richard and Howard. They received the family home plus an additional $125 each for not having received a home apiece as their siblings did. Levi's could have been either the house on M. Gough's plot, or could be a house on the land she sold him near Yelvington. The houses on J. Heightman's and J. R. Gregory's plots were likely Alice's and Amos's. And one of the three houses on the J. Williams plot was likely Susan's, with one of the closer ones to the Levi Taylor plot being most likely. It is worth noting that in 1876--after the publishing of the atlas--Levi's home burned down. That would have been the Taylor family home he purchased from Richard who inherited from Elton. So all trace of that home is now long gone.
So returning to the family's farm, of the 433/434 acres held by Howard and Elton Taylor, I wanted to determine which were the portions bought from Ann Tennant and Prudence Price, and which were the original 300 purchased from James Madison. It is difficult to say definitively, but I believe we can get a general idea using some basically logic.
The 74 acres purchased from the Tennant heirs bordered George Riley and Isaac Crabtree at the time of purchase. In the 1876 atlas, northwest of the Taylor area you'll find the land belonging to P. H. Price, which is the aforementioned Prudence Price, wife of Robert and daughter of George Riley. The 59 acres Elton bought from Prudence bordered the lands of Milo Riley and Ben Riley, sons of George.
So my conclusion is that at one point George Riley's lands extended from where they are in 1876 down to where they would be adjacent to the Taylor area. In 1840, Howard Taylor bought land that was between his and George Riley's portions, with it bordering the Crabtree land to the north. You'll see that in 1876, the Crabtrees still hold land adjacent to the Prudence Price land and north of the Taylor area. Later, Elton bought 59 acres of George Riley's southernmost land that bordered the lands Taylor bought from Tennant. So most of the land on the west part of the Taylor's land, including the portion Carlin and Gough hold in 1876 and parts of the Gregory, Heightman, and possibly Jacob portions were the lands purchased by the Taylors after their initial 300 acre purchase from Madison.
Why does that matter? Because that is what ties my big theory all together. Considering how wealthy these families were, I do not believe they were all buried in unmarked graves. Even, as discussed in Part I of this study, the Bells and Tapscotts had at least some wealth despite not paying their debts to Madison. I believe once the Taylors and Tapscotts began dying off that the family established a burial ground.
When Madison reclaimed his land that hadn't been paid for, as part of his settlement he gave 100 acres each to Frances Bell and Nancy Tapscott. I doubt they had any say in what lands they received, though perhaps they received a portion of the lands on which they were actively residing at the time. It's impossible to say for sure. A few years later, Frances Bell's sons bought 300 acres of that land his family had forfeited back from Madison. So my theory is this:
Either the family cemetery lies in the 200 acres Madison gave back to Bell and Tapscott, or when Howard and Allen got their pick of 300 acres to buy jointly, they bought the land that included the cemetery where their brothers were buried. If that land did include the cemetery, where is that land now? As mentioned in Part I, Frances and Nancy both sold their 100 acres to Simpson Stout. Land records show that that land passed to Simpson's son Benjamin, who sold 160/200 of those acres to George L. Calhoun. That puts those 200 acres right across the road from the Taylor farm. So if the Taylor burial ground was there, the family did not have to go very far off their own property to bury their kin.
From the 1876 Daviess County atlas. In red you'll see Prudence Price's land; her father's land once stretched down to border the Taylor land. The purple circle indicates most of the land Elton Taylor bought from Prudence. The blue circle shows most of the remainder of the Taylor estate. The black circle is a modern point of reference as it shows the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church which still stands there today. The green circle was land that Camden Riley bought near the Taylor plantation. The orange circle is the land of George Calhoun who bought most of the property that Frances Bell and Nancy Tapscott received from James Madison.
If the land Frances and Nancy got from Madison didn't include the cemetery, I find it hard to believe that Howard and Allen would overlook that land and buy something else. I believe they would have wanted control over the property where their kin rested. Unfortunately, no record of a Taylor burial ground has been uncovered. But in the decades after the Taylors bought their 300 acres from Madison, the family continued to die off and NONE of their graves have been found. I believe they would have continued using their established family burial ground and that it would lie either on their property or in the property's immediate vicinity.
Here is a list of the Taylors and their relatives whose graves have not been accounted for in chronological order of their deaths or assumed deaths:
John Marshall Taylor, d. circa 1826
William Tapscott, d. circa 1828
Benjamin Bell, d. Jul 1829
Rawleigh Colston Taylor, d. between 1830-1840
Catherine Winstead Taylor, wife of Rawleigh, d. 23 May 1833
Allen Griffen Taylor, d. circa Sep 1834
Charles William Taylor, d. 31 Dec 1834
John Taylor, son of Charles, d. before 1840
Charles Taylor, son of Charles, d. before 1840
Frances Taylor, daughter of Rawleigh, d. before 1840
Unknown Son Taylor, d. between 1840-1850, son of Howard T. Taylor
Frances Graham Taylor Bell, d. circa May 1845
Howard Taylor, d. 16 Aug 1851
Thomas L. Phillips Jr., son of Susan, d. between 1860-1870
John H. Taylor, d. 26 Jun 1864 in Georgia; unknown whether or not family came to claim his remains
Elton Riley, d. 1866
Susan F. Taylor Phillips, d. circa 1867
James Richard Taylor, d. circa 1875
Howard Victor Taylor, d. Aug 1876
Levi G. Taylor, d. Oct 1877
This list does not include Frances's sister Nancy Graham Tapscott and her three children who are unaccounted for as it is not clear whether or not they remained in Daviess County after they sold their 100 acres in 1833. Also not included are Susan Phillips's sons John and Robert who died after 1880 but likely before 1900, and it is not clear if they were residing in Daviess County when they died or if they died elsewhere, perhaps in Louisville like their father in 1901.
That's 15 people I am reasonably sure would be buried in this family plot. I am less sure but fairly confident about Benjamin Bell, Catherine Winstead, and Mary C. Taylor. And it's possible as many as four or more additional Tapscotts and two or more additional Phillipses could be buried here as well.
There were two additional families I considered may also be buried there. The first was Myra Riley Windsor and her husband, Richard. They died between 1850-1860 and in the 1860 Census their daughters are residing with the Taylors. The second is the George Riley family. As we have discussed, it would appear that the boundaries of George Riley's farm once stretched far enough to border the Taylor farm, though it would appear his actual residence was a little ways north. But because the Riley burial ground was on the other side of the county near Yelvington, when the Rileys in the western half of the county started dying off, would they have had their own family burial ground, or been buried with kin in one nearby that had already been established?
The list of missing burials among these two families includes:
Myra Riley Windsor, d. between 1850-1860
Richard Windsor, d. between 1840-1850
Susan Frances Windsor Patterson, d. between 1880-1900
George Riley, d. about 1844 [note that numerous family trees refer to him as George Washington Riley but no records have been found indicating a middle initial or proving a middle name]
Susannah Huston Riley, d. between 1850-1860
Prudence H. Riley Price Duke, d. 2 Sep 1880
Robert S. Price, d. 15 Mar 1877
Amos Riley, d. between 1850-1860
Milo Riley, d. between 1860-1870
Cynthia Riley, d. between 1850-1880
Benjamin Riley, d. between 1850-1880
George Riley [Jr.], d. between 1850-1880
This does not include grandchildren of Myra. George had no grandchildren. All of his children died without issue. Prudence was the last of his children to die (also without issue) and part of her estate was divided among her parents' siblings and their heirs. Cynthia, Benjamin, and George Jr. are never located in Census records, but Ben is found in land records. Amos is living with his uncle Camden in 1850, and Milo with his uncle William. Milo is found again in 1860 living with the Morris family and then is not found in Census records again. It appears that all or most of the George Riley property eventually came to Prudence.
After sending my suspicions to Christina at the Daviess County Library in Owensboro, she found information on a Windsor burial ground. In 2014, a man named Isaac Settle found the cemetery on the land the Windsors once resided on. Only one grave was still legible--that of Myra Riley's husband, Richard Windsor, b. 8 Jan 1787, d. 18 Jul 1849.
1876 Daviess County Atlas - Little Flock Church is the blue circle for modern point of reference. The red circle on the land of Kate Higgins (daughter of Myra Riley) shows the location of the Windsor Burial Ground.
Red circle indicates modern location of Windsor Burial Ground, per Isaac Settle. Blue circle is the Little Flock Church.
Christina found 3 death announcements for grandchildren of Richard and Myra Windsor indicating they were also buried there:
Susan Frances Patterson, age 20, d. Feb 1902. Daughter of Susan Frances Windsor.
Dillard Patterson, age 26, d. Aug 1899. Son of Susan Frances Windsor.
James Nolan Patterson Jr., age 23, d. Jan 1897. Son of Susan Frances Windsor.
Susan Frances Windsor died between 1880-1900 and we can presume she was also likely buried there. Myra Riley Windsor is also a safe bet for being buried there. Myra's other children Katherine "Kate" Windsor Higgins and William Taylor McAtee are buried at Mater Dolorosa Cemetery (Owensboro) and Calvary Cemetery (Louisville), respectively. It is possible other grandchildren and relatives of Richard and Myra are buried there.
As far as the George Riley family is concerned, his farm was closer to the Taylors than the Windsors, but it's still impossible to say which they would have been buried at or if they might have had their own separate burial ground as well. I am not comfortable asserting one way or the other what direction his family may have gone, but one day I would like to find where they ended up as well.
1876 Daviess County atlas showing the distance from the George Riley farm to the Taylor and Windsor farms.
Before reaching the conclusion that there must have been a Taylor family burial ground, I tried to find other cemeteries in the vicinity where the Taylors could be buried. There was no indication they were buried at the Sorgho cemetery, nor record of them at Rosehill-Elmwood Cemetery. Both would have been a few miles in opposite directions from the Taylor farm, and neither were established when the earliest family members--John Taylor and William Tapscott--perished. I did end up finding record of one cemetery in their immediate vicinity that was abandoned and seemed promising until I did further research.
I assumed for a long time that the Rileys and Taylors were Catholic. After all, I could document that Mary Alice Taylor Clements and her brother Amos Riley Taylor were Catholic. But I never assumed that both could have been converted to Catholicism rather than becoming Catholic through their family's traditions, but that appears to have been the case. The families of Alice's and Amos's spouses--the Clements and Rudd families, respectively--are well-documented Catholic families. Since I thought that meant the Taylors at least would have been Catholic too, I reached out to the Diocese of Owensboro for any information.
They could not find the Taylors in any of their early records nor in any burial records from area Catholic cemeteries. But I learned of an early Catholic church just 5 miles south of the Taylor farm that seemed promising. St. Raphael Catholic Church was established in 1844 and included a cemetery. (http://wiki.historyofowensboro.com/index.php?title=St._Raphael_Church) The original site and cemetery are about 600 yards southeast of where the church stands today. The original cemetery ceased being used in 1872-73 other than an occasional burial and the cemetery was eventually razed. No record of the burials there was kept. There was a survey of the surviving headstones, but they did not include any Taylors.
Reference from Google Maps showing the distance from the Taylor farm to St. Raphael Church.
History of St. Raphael Church
History of St. Raphael Church
I felt strongly that this was a promising lead as a place where the Taylors could have been--since all the stones were lost, it would be no wonder we never found record of them. But upon examining some other records, I came to a new conclusion. I wondered if I could tie the Taylors to St. Raphael or another church by looking at their marriage records to see the minister(s) performing their marriage ceremonies. As it happened, the man who married Howard and Elton also performed marriages for two of their siblings each. The marriages of John Taylor (1823), Martha Riley (1825), Rawleigh Taylor (1827), Howard Taylor to Elton Riley (1833), and Lydia Riley (1835) were all conducted by a Reverend John Pinkston.
Per the History of Daviess County, Kentucky (1883) [https://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_Daviess_County_Kentucky_Toget.html?id=_xxEAQAAMAAJ], "John Pinkston was an old-fashioned pioneer Methodist local preacher, earnest, zealous and efficient, and the early builder up of the Methodist church in this county. He lived, 1818-'34 and after, two or three miles from Owensboro, on the Litchfield road." Neighboring Ohio County also lists him among the early pioneering preachers for their area, indicating he made his way around the area rather than being relegated to a single location. This makes sense since the Taylors and Rileys lived on opposite ends of Daviess County, so either one or the other or both would have to go quite a ways out of their way to be married by the preacher. It makes more sense that he probably rotated around locations in the region.
This led to my conclusion that the Taylors and Rileys were actually Methodist and I looked into early Methodist cemeteries in the area. Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church (not related to the Pleasant Grove Baptist church in the immediate vicinity of the Taylor farm) looks to have been the earliest. Marked graves in their cemetery date back to the 1830s. This cemetery appears to have remained largely intact and there are no marked Taylors buried there. The church itself is about 15 miles by modern roads from the Taylor farm, which was likely longer with more-limited older routes, making it unlikely that the Taylors attended there.
At this point, I feel I have exhausted all but one possibility for where the Taylors could be buried. The Rosehill-Elmwood Cemetery experienced a fire many years ago that destroyed its records. The old part of the cemetery has never been fully surveyed. As the cemetery had not been established by the time our earliest family members died, I don't think they would have been buried there. And the cemetery was far enough from the Taylor farm that I don't think my more immediate Taylors would have originally been buried there either when the cemetery had been established and they were dying off between 1851-1877. That said, this family has a habit of moving burials, and it is possible that the Taylor graves were moved to Rosehill-Elmwood at some point but their memorials have not been recorded in modern records yet.
This is a long shot, to be fair. I think there would have been some evidence come up or some of their stones would have been come across by now if they had been moved, but it is not out of the realm of possibility. I have found two instances where their family members have been moved from one plot to another. In 1920, an aunt, uncle, and cousins of the family were moved from a small burial ground outside Louisville to Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.
Maas Funeral Home (Louisville) record of Phillips family burial removals. Courtesy of Filson Historical Society.
Later, in 1947, the grave of Amos Riley Taylor was moved from its original plot in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis to Calvary Cemetery within the same city. The family reports this was because his daughter Sarah Alexandrine wanted her parents in a Catholic cemetery. She would later be buried in the same plot along with her sister Nannie. Their brother Francis Howard Taylor remains in the original plot at Bellefontaine.
So it is not without precedent that the family could have been moved from a family burial ground, but I have no indication that that occurred. What I do have is a suspicion that the burial ground was destroyed some time ago, and that is based on the aforementioned second grave of Amos Riley Taylor at Calvary Cemetery. The Taylor family stone there is large and has the names of all four persons buried in the plot. Additionally, the stone is a cenotaph for two other family members--none other than Howard and Elton Taylor.
Courtesy of Find A Grave user Kathie (ID # 46970958)
Firstly, documentation proves that Howard died in 1851 and Elton's will was probated in 1866, so the years of death are off. But I find it odd that Sarah would have had these names etched onto the family stone just because. She didn't know either of her paternal grandparents, with both of them dying before she was born. And she did not have her maternal grandparents the Rudd's names etched onto the stone. I think she was aware that the family cemetery had been lost/destroyed and this was a way of preserving these names in memorial form. Perhaps I am reading too much into it--I honestly hope that I am, because it would be a thrill to find Howard's and Elton's marked graves some day. But I think this cenotaph was put into place because their original burial place was no longer marked.
In hopes that perhaps remains of this cemetery could be seen earlier, I contacted the Daviess County PVA about their earliest aerial photos of the county and was sent the earliest one of the area around the Taylor farm from 1950.
1950 aerial view of Taylor farm - Courtesy of Daviess County PVA
Unfortunately, as you can see, there are no signs of the former Taylor home or cemetery on from this view.
I am still planning to write to some of the current owners of the Taylor's former property in hopes one of them will know of a cemetery having been on the grounds at some point, but I'm not holding my breath. And it's even possible that the former Howard Taylor farm is NOT where the Taylor burial ground is. Remember, Bell and Tapscott held a total of 2,000 acres. The 200 their widows received and the 400+ Howard and Elton later owned is only a quarter of that total. My assumption that Howard and Allen would have wanted to buy the land their brothers and other relatives were buried on could be off. The cemetery could be miles away from the land they bought. All I can do at this point is use my best judgement and guess as well as I can, but this is not a precise science.
Fortunately, the final burial ground I want to write about has actually been located, so that takes a lot of guesswork out of it. For that we go all the way to the other end of Daviess County where the Amos Riley family once resided.
A Riley family cemetery came to my attention a few years ago when corresponding with various descendants of Amos Riley Jr., who removed from Daviess County to New Madrid, MO. One cousin reported having visited the cemetery in the 1970s or 1980s and said that cattle had knocked all the stones over and they had been stacked together near the fence. I worked with the Daviess County library to narrow down the location of that cemetery. Thanks to the family's connection to Josiah Henson, AKA "The Real Uncle Tom" [http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2012/11/amos-riley-jr-and-josiah-henson-real.html], a historical survey of the area had been conducted years ago when researchers tried to narrow the location of the Riley plantation in preparation for a historical marker for Henson to be placed in the area.
They contacted descendants and poured over land records until they found what appeared to the Riley homeplace. Near the remains of the Riley home was the old family cemetery--the same one my cousins in New Madrid told me about. They were confident they had found the correct location of the farm as it corresponded with Henson's description in his autobiography. Robert M. Polsgrove conducted the survey and wrote: "In his written account of his life experiences, Henson stated that the Riley farm was situated five miles south of the Ohio River and fifteen miles above the Yellow Banks which correspond with the actual distance to these points. ... The family cemetery is located in the northeast corner of the garden. The two surviving markers are marble obelisks: John Hathway, b. May 28, 1786, d. June 25, 1866. Martha, wife of J. H., b. Oct 5 1804, d. July 29, 1861."
Topographical map from the historical survey of Riley property showing locations of various Riley family sites, including the cemetery.
The land today is owned by the Hawes family, as it was when the survey was conducted in 1979. The land originally passed from Amos Riley to his son, William, and later to his wives. The Riley estate as a whole was expansive, as the report states: "[In] 1814* Amos Riley left Maryland and journeyed to Kentucky in search of new land. The same year he purchased one thousand acres of land along Blackford Creek, situated in then Ohio Couny, from Norborne B. Beale for one thousand dollars. A year later Daviess County was formed from Ohio County. ... Amos Riley was one of the first settlers in the newly created county. The first Tax Assessment Record of Daviess County in 1815 contained an entry for Riley for one thousand acres on Blackford Creek valued at $4,730, and the owner of sixteen slaves.
During his lifetime Riley acquired 3,746 acres of land, making him one of the largest landowners in the county. By 1825 he owned 1,545 acres of land on Blackford Creek. He bought the majority of his land holdings from 1830 until his death in 1838."
*Note: Amos Riley is enumerated in the 1810 Census in Jefferson County, Kentucky, indicating he was already in Kentucky well before 1814. Amos Riley Jr. and Elton Riley self-reported their states of birth in 1810 and 1811, respectively, as Kentucky.
By his death, Riley still held large expanses of land that were divided among his children and further divided upon the death of his wife. But the focus here remains on the land devised to his son William. I was fortunate enough last summer to get to visit the farm in person and walk the cemetery, though only the aforementioned Hathaway stones were visible, and they were on the ground. I could not find the stack of stones mentioned by the New Madrid cousins, but they may not have been visible among the very tall grass and cows I was standing among. I am hopeful one day I can return and do a deeper look. Pictures from my trip to Owensboro and Maceo can be found in a post about all my Kentuck adventures last summer: http://thesaltofamerica.blogspot.com/2019/09/2019-genealogy-road-trip-kin-tucky.html
Family testimony reported from various descendants of William Riley indicates the cemetery was still relatively intact until around the 1960s and is said to have included at least a dozen and possibly as many as two dozen stones. I have not found any relatives who have a picture of the cemetery, but I have compiled a list of names of Riley relatives that lived in this area of the county and whose burial places remain unaccounted for:
Amos Riley (d. about 1838)
Susanna Phillips Riley (d. about 1843)
William Riley Hathway (d. before 1870)
John C. Hathway (d. 1881)
Cynthia Riley (d. 1846)
Sue Riley (d. between 1855-1860) (Daughter of Camden Riley; born 1855, died pre-1860 Census. Child could also potentially be buried in maternal grandparents' family cemetery, the Enoch Kendall Cemetery near Yelvington)
William Riley (d. before 1870)
Unknown daughter Riley I (d. before 1830)**
Unknown daughter Riley II (d. before 1840)**
**It is believed based on Census records that the Rileys may have lost children who predeceased them and whose names we do not know. The 1810 Census reports the family having 3 female children under age 10; the only one we are aware of is Martha, b. 1804. Amos Jr. was born in Jun 1810 and it is not clear what date in 1810 the Census was conducted so while he is most likely one of the two males under 10 that is not a certainty.
In 1820, all known children are enumerated in their correct age groups. However, further evidence that the Rileys had two daughters who we do not know is present in that two females ages 10-15 are enumerated. The female 16-25 would be Martha again and the three under 10 would be Elton, Cynthia, and Lydia, but the other two are not known. One of those females is again in the household in 1830 as a 20-29 year old. To be fair, my estimate for Cynthia's age is about 1812-1815, though she could be older. Regardless, there is still an extra female we cannot identify in the 1830 household.
Further, due to the six-year age gap between Camden (1816) and probable twins Myra and William (1822) indicates the possibility that children were born and died in that six-year period, though there is no proof of this.
This gives us 11 confirmed (the eldest Hathaways) and suspected burials which matches the approximate number furnished by relatives who remember seeing the cemetery when they were young.
In an attempt to get a look at how large the cemetery looked before being razed, I contacted the Daviess County PVA again. Chris Flener of that office sent me the earliest aerial shot of that area he had which was taken in 1950. Unfortunately, the photo is not high enough resolution to gain additional details on the cemetery.
1950 aerial view of Riley farm. Red circle is where the cemetery is. Courtesy of Daviess County PVA.
Unfortunately, that is just about all the information I have on these cemeteries at this time. I do have a couple of pending leads with some current and former Daviess County locals, so my hope is that down the road I will be able to update this post with additional information. One is a Riley cousin whose mother remembers the old cemetery and who may have a lead on a second cemetery connected to the Rileys.
The other is the aforementioned Isaac Settle, a Sorgho-area native with a great deal of knowledge on the county's old and forgotten cemeteries. he has already made me aware of a promising cemetery called the Crabtree Cemetery that was on the farm of the aforementioned Crabtree family; you can see the farm in the 1876 atlas due eat of the Taylor farm and north of the Calhoun plot. So far only Crabtree burials have been found there but there is said to be dozens of stones below the surface. Hopefully more information will emerge over time.
When I have more to share, I will update this post.
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