[Hooper] Searching for Obadiah Hooper's Father #4

[Deanna Baumgardner]

Garthright Cemetery

(Hooper/Yarborough/Garthright(Gathright) Family Cemetery)

Garthright House

Hanover County, Virginia

VDHR Site #  042-0014

8 Mar 2010

On 8 Mar 2010 Eugene Atkinson and Art Taylor field reviewed the “Garthright Cemetery” located at 6005 Cold Harbor Road on the property of Hanover County (Parks and Recreation Department) containing 51 acres, N37˚ 35.293´ W077˚ 16.747´.  It is numbered # 349 in the Hanover County Historical Society database (records need to be reconciled).

The defined cemetery is enclosed by a 32‘ 7” X 62’ 9” X 3’ brick wall with half round brick top, with cast iron centered gate on south/house side wall.  It is approximately 180 feet north of the right front of the house.  The wall as described was in place prior to Rev. T. W. Hooper’s Feb 1895 newspaper article reference below.

Based on dowsing evidence, there are 3 rows of 8 graves in the traditional Christian east/west burial orientation inside the wall with indications that the wall is constructed on top of additional graves.  Random dowsing on all sides of the defined cemetery provides evidence of probably hundreds more traditional Christian east/west burial orientation graves/gravesites in the fields to the north (as far as 300 feet into this immediately adjacent field), east and south and the light woods approximately 80 feet to the west and around these woods.  Along the north and west edges of the woods near the corner, there is some groundhog burrowing and “equipment wheel sink” depression evidence of graves/sites. As the adjacent Garthright House was used by both Union and Confederate armies as a hospital during the War Between the States (Civil War) as the lines shifted, many of the randomly dowsed indications may well be former grave sites as Union army dead were later disinterred and re-interred in the National Cemetery nearby and some Confederate dead were disinterred if identified and re-interred in family or church cemeteries.  For the most part, many Confederate dead probably remain in place.  The entire area has for years prior to current ownership and preservation efforts, been well “relict hunted” and most gravesites probably disturbed based on conversations of many relict hunters.

In addition, there is dowsing evidence around and in the yard of the Garthright House owned by the United States Department of Interior (National Battlefield Parks) on the north, south and west sides (including the field west of the property on the Hanover County Property). The area immediately east, in front of the house is the only area that did not show evidence of graves, again searched on a random basis.

This cemetery is referenced in Family Graveyards in Hanover County, Virginia, 2000, Volume 2, page 72.  It locates the cemetery about 250’ west of the house on Cold Harbor Road (Route 156).  There are no markers in the 30’ x 60’ brick wall enclosure.  A bronze plaque [outside the wall] states:

 
“Near Cold Harbor stands the house [Garthright House] where my father was born, and not far from the house is a graveyard, surrounded by a brick wall… There sleep the generations of my forefathers.  In that enclosure is buried Mr. James Hooper.”
                                                                                                                              Dr. Thomas W. Hooper (1895)
 
This quote is from one of Dr. Hooper’s article “About Beaver Dam” published in the Richmond Dispatch 3 Feb 1895.  In the article, he further describes the cemetery, “…there is a graveyard, surrounded by a brick wall, with a half-circle brick along the top.”  He also says of James Hooper “…and at his funeral Rev. Samuel Darius [Davies] officiated, in 1754 [actual date 21 Aug 1756 based on the sermon], and preached a most powerful sermon on the text selected by the good man before his death, I Peter, iv.”
Ernestine W. Dodl (Mrs. R. Conrad Dodl, Jr.) provided Arthur H. Taylor, III with a copy “Yarborough Data” by Annie Bell Whitlock Broadwell, second daughter of Rebecca Hooper Yarborough Whitlock as well as other hand written general notes.  Included in this data is another hand written letter from Mrs. C. L. McGhee (Margaret Yarborough McGhee) dated July 5, 1949.

From these letters and general notes, the following reconstructed list and partial home and property history has been developed as to who is buried in the further described “old brick burying ground at the Miles Garthright house”…  …as well as the larger one in grounds at Cold Harbor, the old house at Cold Harbor was the Hooper place, one of the Hoopers married a Yarborough (sic) girl, and the home descended down thru her to Miles Gathright (note spelling change to Gathright) who married Margaret Yarbrough, then to George Yarbrough who married his first cousin, Margaret Gathright, then to his daughter, Margaret Y. McGhee, sold the whole place to the U. S. Govt, who maintain a park service place there.”:

James Hooper (? – 1756) and his wife (based on Rev. T. W. Hooper’s article and Samuel Davies sermon);
Probably Thomas and Unity ? Hooper (parents of Edmund Hooper) not in referenced sources, based on research.);
Edmund and Elizabeth ?? Hooper ( (her grgr. grandparents);
Elisha Yarborough (ca 1793 – ca 1860) and his wife [Mary (Margaret F.?)] Hooper (her gr. grandparents);
Miles and Margaret E. Yarborough  (dau. of Elisha and Margaret F.) (gr. uncle & aunt);
Unity H. Yarborough Jones wife of Thomas Jones;
some of Unity’s children;
Adeline Gatewood Yarborough (gr. aunt) (wife of great uncle James Elisha Yarborough);
Lelia Jo ? (dau. of James Elisha Yarbrough) and 2 of her daughters;
Some relatives of John and H. M. Ratcliff (John took over cemetery intending to place marker, died prior to doing so.)
Yarbrough Cemetery

Henrico County, Virginia 

A Yarbrough cemetery in Henrico County near Darbytown Road is also referenced attributed to an article in the Richmond News Leader on 18 Dec 1947 involving Commonwealth Sand and Gravel. They found the cemetery on a tract of their land.  The “graveyard is about 100 feet wide and 130 feet long and is located on the C & O’s land 300 feet by 5000 feet.  “…there is a large vein of gravel…” “…C. Sand Co. asked permission of the Court to dig up and move the 60 or so graves, and rebury them after the gravel has been lifted.”  There are 6 stones “…referenced to as the Yarbrough Burying Ground in deeds as late as 1902.”  “…Robert Craddock, who died in 1942 seems to have been first owner, who was born in 1751…”  Stones list a Mary Bradley (Jesse Yarbrough’s daughter), a baby… another stone lists Eliza Green (1801 – 1862) and Wm. Green (1793 – 1867) supposedly her husband, another marker lists Eley Craddock d. 1836 and another lists Andrew McKim d. 1855.  Further description of the land and cemetery: “Henry Yarbrough & Mary Ann Yarbrough owned land on Darbytown road, family cemetery, Craddocks, Griers [not sure of spelling], Bradleys buried there, as well as Yarbroughs.  Also burying ground on old Yarbrough home place at Varina, as well as the larger one in grounds at Cold Harbor…”

         Notes and letters somewhat fragmented as they are selected pages of what is consists of many more pages not provided this this writer.

 
Prepared by: Arthur H. Taylor, III, 15548 Tyler Station Road, Beaverdam, VA 23015-1413, Phone (804) 449-6702, Email: tee1776 at hotmail.com.