Sylvanus Lewis--Harford Cemetery

Years ago my cousin Stephen G. Fuller and I discovered a small rural graveyard on Wasson Road in Unadilla Township, Livingston County, Michigan. In the graveyard we located less than 30 individual marked grave sites which, included a few distant aunts and uncles. We found it interesting and helpful to know where some of the pieces to our family puzzle were located. The family names that we were searching for on that occasion were RISDON, FERGUSON, and perhaps LEWIS--but we just were not sure on our connection to the LEWIS' at the time. The little graveyard was also a bit confusing to pin down--it seem to have several names including Wright's Chapel Cemetery, Lewis Cemetery and Harford Cemetery. We have since learned that all three are correct--it just depends on who you talk too! During a later visit we diligently recorded the inscriptions on every stone we located and mapped there location for future reference.

After our visit, we began the task of sorting the names and over the last few years have discovered that most of the individuals laid to rest in the graveyard on Wasson Road had family connections to each other. Not too earth shattering of a notion! When we were able to finally connect our RIDSON aunts and uncles with the LEWIS' we discovered that there definitely appeared to be link between our GGGGG-Grandmother Clara (Lewis) Risdon and the folks buried in Unadilla. Clara (BD ?-c1840) was the wife of Almor/Aylmer/Almore Risdon (1789-1838). They lived in the vicinity of Vermillion, Erie County, Ohio and it was there in 1838 that Aylmer drown in the Huron River. It appears that Clara did not survive him very long, but, very little evidence has been found to verify this.

Aylmer and Clara Risdon had the following children:
1) Cynthia Ann RISDON Fox (1828-1882) m. Stephen Fox
2)Elcina RISDON (1829-1915)
m. 1) William C. SMITH, 2) Jacob BRINNINSTOOL, 3) Abel HARP
3)Adaline RISDON Harp (1830-bef. 1860) m. Abel HARP
4)Athaline RISDON Ferguson (1830-1862) m. William FERGUSON
5)Sylvanus Lewis RISDON (1833-1915) m. Alice V. NOBLE
6)Josiah RISDON (1834-1911)
m. 1) Julia VAUGHN, 2) Mary J. MOORE, 3) Caroline VAUGHN

Aylmer was married previously to Pamela or Parmelia NICHOLS and they had three children:
1)George William RISDEN (1818-1893)
2)Elial RISDEN (c1820-1901)
3)Eliza RISDEN (c1820-1864)

It appears that the family of Clara Lewis Risdon moved around a bit--Huron County, Ohio and Livingston County, Michigan. We see that Heman C. LEWIS (buried at Harford Cemetery) and several of his siblings clearly moved to Michigan from Ohio in the decade between 1840 and 1850. With the loss of both Aylmer and Clara their six children were orphaned and in need of care. It appears that all but the oldest daughter Cynthia, move to Michigan with their Lewis relatives. What was most exciting was discovering through the 1850 census that the mother of Heman and Clara was living in Michigan--here name was Cynthia! Then with the help of charts on ancestry.com we start to see the names Sylvanus LEWIS and Cynthia CHAPMAN as the parents of some of these other possible siblings of Heman and Clara. But the day I discovered the 1883 death certificate for Heman, I was convinced--he was definitely the son of Sylvanus LEWIS and Cynthia CHAPMAN.

Because I posted the remaining list of burials that Stephen and I recorded on Findagrave.com, I was surprised to see additional names listed recently on Harford Cemetery's postings. But lucky for me they were posted by another one of my cousins Richard Ramsdill of Stockbridge, Michigan. So I shot off an email to him to inquire about the source of these new postings. He send me a listing for the cemetery that incorporated transcriptions from 1943 and 1982 which included several names from stones that were not present during our 1995 reading. I returned to my files to rediscover our mapping. Would you believe we marked 18 sites where there appeared to be evidence of buried stones! Now there are only a few new recordings from these earlier transcriptions, but there is great evidence that there are additional burials in the graveyard. Several burials here also have foot stones that include simply the initials of the deceased. One of these new listings is for Sylvanus Lewis who is reported to have died on August 14, 1849 at the age of 83 years 11 months and 19 days. Wow! I have now located the burial site of another ancestor and I can be pretty sure of his location because there was indeed a foot stone with "S. L." inscribed on it. Interestingly, there are 4 more stones that appear to be buried in the vicinity of his grave site. I wonder if we will find a stone for Cynthia buried beneath the sod?

Now the planning must begin. We need to perform a little bit of cemetery archeology now. But in order to do that--I need to figure out who owns this property. In my adopted state of Pennsylvania--families own the memorials placed on the graves but I'm not sure about the laws in Michigan. I'm sure neighbors on Wasson Road would get a little freaked out if we just parked the car and began to unload shovels and picks. So I'm looking for some suggestions from any of my fellow genealogist out there on the best ethical and responsible approach to investigating these stones under the sod!

Also-a big shout out to Richard "Dutch" Ramsdill for locating the additional transcriptions! Dutch is one of the leading forces behind the Stockbridge Area Genealogical and Historical Society. Check them out at:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~misaghs/