Exploring Ancestral Places in Vermont!

It has been a long while since I have updated this blog, due to a lot of real-life things going on. I'm going to try to get a post in now and see how it goes. Bear with me! Long post ahead..

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to do something I didn't expect I would ever have the chance to do- explore areas of Vermont where my Greeley, Tarbell, Thompson, Davis, and related ancestors came from. Being from Wisconsin, and living in Georgia, I'd never really been to the northeast before or had a good reason to go (it's a bit expensive). Luckily, I got a great excuse to go! Good friends of mine from college decided to get married in the White Mountains in New Hampshire, so I decided to plan some extra time around the wedding for sightseeing and exploring ancestral areas. I wish I had a little more time up there to explore northern Vermont, where my Mayville and Reynolds ancestors came from. We will have to go back sometime, because I've discovered Tim has some ancestors from Vermont (though we don't know where, yet!)

One of the biggest things I wanted to do during the day I planned to go to Vermont, was find the so-called "Greeley Cemetery" which is located on what used to be the land associated with my ancestors Hiram and Betsy (Davis) Greeley, before they died and family moved away. It's located in the Green Mountains just east of Mt. Tabor, Vermont, and the land itself is now protected national forest. From what I was told, there used to be a town up in that area on the mountain, but when the national forest was created, the people were all told to get out and all buildings, etc., were burned. The land has reverted back to forest for the most part, so the cemetery and graves within are pretty darn remote.

I was determined to find it but also very hesitant to go adventuring in this forest given my lack of experience mountain hiking and dealing with bears.. I tried to gather as much information as possible about locating the cemetery before going. My uncle had attempted to locate the cemetery in the '90s and at that time had been warned strongly by locals not to do it. More recently, I met some folks online who had gone to the homestead and cemetery before. They gave some instruction, which did provide some helpful information but there were a lot of unknowns that remained, such as "is there an actual path that goes anywhere near the cemetery or are we literally just trekking through this forest on an unbeaten path?" I really didn't want to go get lost in the middle of a dang forest!

Because of that, and the uncertainty over bad weather for the day, I decided we should start with a cemetery that, while remote, was still relatively accessible. So we went to Smokeshire Cemetery, which is kind of in the middle of nowhere between Chester and Ludlow, VT. This was interesting because it involved going onto a dirt road that was very steep and went on what can only be classified as an extremely sketchy bridge over a stream. I didn't get a picture of the bridge.. but it had holes in the dirt on it and I wasn't sure if we'd make it to the other side or not!

(part of the steep uphill to the cemetery)

We got to a turn off where a path splits off up to the cemetery off of the "road" we were on. While it was wide enough, I wasn't sure if the path up to the cemetery was intended for car traffic.. so we parked at the base of the hill and walked up. It was pretty cool to come to this clearing in the woods, with a small stone fence around the perimeter of the cemetery:

This cemetery has a lot of family in it, most of them off to the right when you go through the entrance. Some of the young children born to my 4x great-grandparents Corbet Tarbell and Amy Thompson are buried here, along with a bunch of Thompson relatives. Included in that are my 5x great-grandparents, William Thompson (below) and his wife Anna Putnam. Anna's stone unfortunately has snapped off it's base and also snapped in half in the process. It was leaning against a nearby monument. I was wishing there was something I could do but of course I have no means for a repair of this nature. Several of their children and other relatives are nearby in this cemetery. Here is William's stone:

My Tarbells that are known to be buried there are Corbet Tarbell Jr., Joseph N. Tarbell, Marcy Tarbell, and William Greenlief Tarbell. Thus far, their sister Wealthy Ann's burial has never been found. It's unknown if she died young (as the four children above did) or if she married. Their mother, my 4x great-grandmother Amy Thompson Tarbell's burial location is also unknown. She is supposed to have died to the southwest, in Mt. Tabor. She isn't buried here in Smokeshire to our knowledge, and I did not find her with Corbet Tarbell (later, below). There are many Vermont cemeteries that are not yet fully documented, so I hope someday to find where she was buried.

After wandering this cemetery for some time, we left and I decided we would go towards Mt. Tabor and try to locate the Greeley cemetery. All morning I had been wavering between being totally unconvinced that we should do it, and gung-ho to set off into the woods to find them. Now, just after noon, the radar was looking clear and I was feeling optimistic.


We had to drive around the mountains, basically, to enter them. So we drove a meandering route up through Ludlow and then west through Mt. Holly, all towns I recognized from my research and from the family photos we have of these folks. The road was blocked to go straight west to Wallingford then south to Mt. Tabor, so we had to go out of the way to the north, almost all the way to Rutland before coming down 7 to Mt. Tabor. Then, we were off into the forest/mountains....




















The following is what I wrote about our adventure to the cemetery, the night after we completed the hike. For some context, we were given two different possible ways/sets of instructions for reaching the cemetery. One involved walking primarily along part of the Appalachian Trail, called the "Long Trail." The other was via a so-called US Forest service, service road. Here's how we fared:

So, we decided to take the old service road because we thought that might be a more direct route to the cemetery, and John Arsenault had sent me a topographical map just this morning which seemed like it would be the most useful. The other thing we didn't know, was if there was actually a path of any sorts between the suspension bridge on the Long Trail, or if that route required just walking at random. We parked at the Long Trail parking area and walked the rest of the way down the road (as it became gravel right after this parking lot) - further up the mountain. We saw the “entrance” to the Long Trail and it really didn't look appealing, and this helped solidify our opinion.

(Pretty view among the trees up on the mountain, walking to the trail we were taking)

I think the walk down the road was about a mile, perhaps closer to 2 miles. We reached the point where the maps I had, indicated the old washed out service road would exist. On the right was a spot where old car tracks were (possibly a parking spot); and on the left were a row of about 5-6 posts, in the middle of which appeared to be a tramped down trail of sorts.

We at first had some doubts (or a lot) but we decided to try it and if it was a path to nowhere, at least we had a tramped down path to follow back to the road. Tim went first to knock down spiders, and especially so because of either of us he had way more experience in the woods (as a boy scout). By way more experience I mean, he has gone camping and I had no idea what I was doing other than educated guessing and pure logic.
We followed the footpath a while, it merged with a small stream for parts of it, then we ended up in a “path” that was clearly vehicle-width. We essentially surmised that this path had begun as a wagon trail, and I suppose at some point was used by service vehicles for the forestry department.. however it was clear it wasn't used any more because of how many downed trees fell across this road.

Along the whole left side of the road was a man-made “fence” of rocks-- basically a stone wall about 1.5-2 feet? in height. Clearly, this was some sort of border, theoretically the border of the land owned by the Greeleys. We followed this along, not sure if the gravestones would be right along this path, or if they were somewhere off to the left (east), because again, we had no explicit instructions on where this cemetery was located. About, I would say, 65-70% of the way down the trail, I noticed that the border rock wall curved inward, made an opening a little wider than the side of a car or wagon, and on the right, in similarly curved inward, then back out to make the rest of the wall, sort of like so (I couldn't get a good picture of this due to all the trees and brush):

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 _______________________)      (______________________

Part of the "wall" veering inwards to the east, like part of a driveway: 

The view down the old wagon path:

I thought to myself.. and also told Tim, that it looked to me like the entrance to something, a driveway, or whatever, and speculated that perhaps it was the entrance to where their house had been. Tim decided to look down the path a little bit, while I decided to go through this "driveway" entrance and up the slope a little bit. I wandered in a straight line east, and couldn't see much. I was nervous of losing the path, since Tim wasn't nearby, so I decided to go back to the main path. Before turning back towards the path, I said out loud to myself, "I feel like I'm so close!"

We followed the path.. I found Tim down towards the end... at the suspension bridge we had heard all about. It turns out the path up from the suspension bridge is the same path that connects up to the road. Who knew. Well, now we did. We paused for a second to enjoy the rapids and falls that could be viewed from the middle of the suspension bridge, and I knew the Greeley mill must have been near here.

Anyway, now we knew we had gone past the spot where we needed to turn in and look for the Greeleys, and headed up this path now with the other directions of (from the suspension bridge, go 500 feet NNW, then go about 200 feet east). We now knew it was the path we were on, and that we must need to go in about 200 feet to find them.

Tim counted out about 200 steps up the path and wanted to turn in where we had seen some other evidence of activity long ago. One, was a square area that was all this weird green plant like a carpet. We had no idea why but it seemed like something may have been at this spot. Near this we saw a big depression/hole in the ground with a hewn stone in it. Below: 

The stone didn't appear to say anything. Near this hole was a big flat stone somewhat similar to many of the old, old, colonial markers were made of (possibly slate?) It was about 2.5 feet long, 5 inches wide, and thin.. like a doorstep or something.. it was really interesting and the edges of this stone also looked as if they were hewn by a person. Below:

 In addition, there were about four very old-looking red bricks sitting on a rock near this area. I wondered whether it was a house or maybe the mill that had been here? Here:

Obviously something had been here, but I was not convinced this was where the cemetery was, and I was leaning more and more towards that bigger clearing I had already seen, and thought maybe I just hadn't gone far enough from the path. So, Tim and I returned to the main path, and he continued counting out steps. Lo and behold, around 400-500 paces we were back in front of that opening. We decided to pace out 200 steps east and see what we could find. We knew from John's picture that the graves were near a stone wall.. but we also knew that the stone wall we had followed as part of the path, was not where the graves were. So, we counted back and around that spot found another stone wall:

At that point I had started hearing a rumble and wondered if it was thunder (we were under a thick canopy of trees, couldn't really see the sky!) A soft patter soon after confirmed rain. Tim was telling me that if we followed this stone wall, we would likely find the graves. I was (still) worried about getting lost by getting too far from the path. I said something about how I didn't know that this was even the right stone wall that the graves were on, and started to think we should head in, especially if there was a storm on the way. Just then I turned and looked to my left, and what did I see but two gravestones. Maybe a mirage. No, they were really there, about 30-40 feet SE of where we were standing, of course along the stone wall. The ferns were so high as to almost obscure the stones from where we stood. What I saw:

We walked towards them and photographed the surroundings, then I took a video walking out as the thunder was confirmed and the rain picked up. Overall it was a lot of fun. We got out on the road and back to the car as a downpour started, and luckily the lightning was just far enough away to be of little concern to us. Definitely an adventure!!

 Light shining down on the graves:

James Madison Sawtell, son of Amy Tarbell and James Sawtell:

My 4x great grandfather, Hiram Greeley:

His wife, my 4x great-grandmother, Betsey Davis:

After making it through this adventure, I had a long list of other relatives I wanted to try to find.. we decided to try to find as many of them as we could before we ran out of time (it was a 2+ hour drive back to our hotel in New Hampshire!) We stopped at an antique "store" (barn/house) in Mt. Tabor itself (Carr's Antiques) before heading on.. The lady who lived there was very nice but liked to talk and we were on a short time schedule!

I really enjoyed driving through these areas where my ancestors came from. The mountains were absolutely beautiful, and the roads often wound right alongside creeks or streams. This reminded me of up north in Wisconsin, outside of Appleton where many members of these same family members settled. Up in that area, many of the roads wind right alongside creeks, too (though without the beautiful mountainous backdrop!) In a way it felt like being back home. But trekking through the mountains made me wonder what possessed them to want to try to live here? And how did they maneuver this terrain with dirt roads and wagons during the winter?! Oh my gosh. It's no wonder to me that their children mostly moved west to the much flatter midwest and plains states.. While the mountains are beautiful I can imagine they were completely unforgiving back then.

We wound our way down towards Londonderry and found the final resting spot of my 4x great-grandfather Corbet Tarbell:

Next to him was his second wife, Nancy Bolster. No sign of his first wife, my ancestor, Amy Thompson. Other Tarbells, including some of Corbet's children who lived to adulthood, were scattered throughout this cemetery. There were a lot of Davises here, too, but we were running low on time and didn't have the chance to look thoroughly through this cemetery.

I then realized we were near Landgrove, where my Davis ancestors lived.. I wanted to find Gideon Davis's gravestone, so we went to the old Landgrove cemetery, established in 1810, hoping he would be there. Many members of his family were there, including his son Gideon Davis Jr. We didn't find a stone for the elder Gideon, though there was a lot of open space near Gideon Jr.'s gravestone. I wonder if he is there? Or perhaps elsewhere in some as-yet undocumented cemetery nearby?

We drove through Weston, VT, next. This was another familiar town name from my research. My ancestor Hiram Greeley had been given ownership of the 5th pew at the old meeting house in Weston. The meeting house still stands, though it was closed by the time we got there:

We then worked eastward towards Andover. On the way, we stopped to see Hiram Greeley's parents, my ancestors Lydia Cram and Nathaniel Greeley, in Middletown Cemetery:

Middletown Cemetery was right on a main road, but there was no marking for it-- just a vehicle-width path off to the right side of the road. Luckily Tim spotted it while we drove past.. then found somewhere to turn around. We had to just pull off to the side of the road and hope nobody hit our rental car, as there was nowhere remotely close to park. Middletown really meant, "middle of nowhere." This cemetery was peaceful and secluded. Many old stones, and quite a few Greeleys spread throughout.


By this time it was getting pretty late in the day. We headed east towards Chester, which was by far the biggest town we saw the whole time we were in Vermont (of course we never went far enough north to see Burlington or Montpelier. We were relieved that Chester was big enough to have a McDonalds, because by this point we were quite hungry and none of the places we had passed by had any sort of fast food. McDonalds is far from my preferred fare, and I would have liked to try a local diner, but we were on a big time crunch. I was trying to avoid driving through the Green Mountains after dark due to all of the animal crossing signs we had found on the way out of them to come to Vermont. Signs for moose, bears, deer, etc. Well, we still didn't make it back before dark, and narrowly avoided a deer that casually crossed the road in front of us. Before we crossed back into New Hampshire, we had time to stop at one covered bridge.

Overall, it was a great day exploring Vermont areas that my ancestors had lived in and once roamed. It was obvious that I could have spent probably 3-4 days exploring all of these areas, and tracking down every single cemetery I wanted to visit (there were quite a few I just didn't have time to get to). I had wanted to go to a few more antique shops, too, looking for Greeley and Tarbell stuff, but we just didn't have the time. I hope I will have the opportunity sometime to explore further, and to get a bit further north to Swanton and St. Albans someday, too.