It took a little driving and a bit of searching but we finally found Caesar Creek cemetery in Waynesville, Ohio. It was on the very end of New Burlington Road which winds its way along Caesar creek before dead ending here and then it's a pleasant walk across this quiet meadow in the woods just off of the road.
Surrounded by a beautiful and thick, dry-laid rock wall the cemetery slumbers amidst birdsong and wind rustled trees. It has a lovely view of the reservoir through the woods.
The cemetery was established in October of 1805 and used to have two log meetinghouses before this building was built in 1849, which has since been moved to Caesar's Creek Pioneer Village. This building has been restored. The cemetery is approximately 7 miles east of Waynesville. This is a Quaker burial ground.
I found this picture on line on the Gen Web cemetery site as we have not been to the pioneer village as yet. The Warren county historical society has a blog and site as well.
I fell in love with this tiny stone, that of Victory Stiles who lays beside her sister Celestia who also died at young age. Victory died in 1855 at the age of 11 days old. Celestia passed in 1856 at the age of 5 years, 9 months. Early child mortality was an unfortunate and sad fact of life in those days. I stood there trying to imagine the grieving parents making there way all these miles out here by wagon and leaving their dear young ones in this quiet place. We did not find the parents buried here. Perhaps they moved away.
Three quarters of the cemetery is well kept but then we noticed that the wall continued but the last portion had been completely grown over. We made our way into the brush and trees and discovered stones hidden beneath. We wondered why this portion of the cemetery was allowed to be overtaken.
Upon further reading there is a group that has been restoring the cemetery and keeping up the grounds. They have done a lovely job and it is a labor of love. They have a plan of clearing the "thicket".
There are a number of Civil war graves as well as a Revolutionary war veteran. Some of the family names to be found in quantity are Compton, Collett, Chenoweth, Farquhar, Furnas, Hawkins, Johnson, Mendenhall, Mills, Moon, Painter, Sexton and Shepard, Spray, Stanfield, Walton, and Wilson. You can go to http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohwarren/Cemetery/caesar/wa.htm to view a complete list of graves and family names as well as photos of the graves themselves.
This is also part of the Caesar Creek wildlife area. All in all well worth the drive and a pleasant afternoon.
