Hopewell Historic Cemetery

I took a few days off from posting because I had an event that I was helping to run.  Today, as part of recovering from that, my two friends and I went to two cemeteries in the area around Oxford, Ohio.

Our first stop was the cemetery at Historic Hopewell Church, which was founded in 1808, although the existing building dates from 1826. The church and cemetery are outside of Oxford, Ohio, on Camden-College Corner Road, north of Hueston Woods State Park. The historical marker notes that the first burial in the cemetery was Thomas McDill, a War of 1812 veteran who died the next year.  I suspect this may be a photograph of the grave marker that includes his name because of the War of 1812 marker next to it, but if it is, I photographed the wrong side to read his name.

This cemetery is still active, as evidenced by at least one relatively new grave we saw.  According to the text on the historical marker, there are a number of Revolutionary War veterans buried here, but we didn’t see any marked as such.

The single most fascinating marker I saw was this one.

I don’t know much about Margaret Vandegriff, but the intricate carving on her tombstone has made her a local notable, if posthumously. The Hopewell Historic Church itself uses a photograph on the website, and a pamphlet on funeral and mourning customs at the McGuffey House uses it on the cover. It’s a little hard to make out, even in the detail shot, but the tomb the female figure is sitting on actually has text on it, most of which is worn away, but we could make out “memory” and “Vandegriff.”