On the way home from Fair Hill on Sunday, we passed an abandoned cemetery on Flint Hill Road and -- this should come as no surprise to you -- stopped to check it out.
Some of the tombstones were so weathered that they were illegible. Others were more recent, but the latest one we saw dated from 1933. One stone said simply "Children" and gave the parents' names, J. Smith and Rebecca Curry. We saw the ruins of a small stone building, now overgrown with brush and vines.
Dearest Partner did a quick online search and learned that it was the Flint Hill Cemetery. The first church on the site, built in about 1831, was the Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1854 it burned down, and when it was rebuilt in 1860, it was renamed Flint Hill Methodist Church. It operated until 1901, when most of the members moved to Kemblesville. The building was used as a Sunday school in 1904, and the church was reconsecrated in 1913, but attendance was sparse. It was closed and abandoned and burned down in the 1960s.
According to the Find A Grave website, "Before the fire, the church records were moved to the Kemblesville United Methodist Church. This church, however, suffered its own serious fire, and the records of Flint Hill, including the burial records, were lost."
Dearest Partner pointed out the irony of storing records offsite, as recommended, but losing them to fire anyway!
The cemetery is currently maintained by the Kemblesville United Methodist Church.
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