Dillard Family Cemetery

R,

It's located off of Belmont Road in Spotsylvania... I'm going to post better directions on the project itself... Also - the sat photos and the coordinates... I was getting that stuff together - but I was kind of excited so I wanted to invite you to the project so you could see too...

Its basically where "A.Dillard" is on the 1863 map... Its the "old Dillard" place - as opposed to the one at Brokenburg that was the "new Dillard" place...

Unfortunately there isn't but the one main monument in the cemetery.
No other head stones I could find... The ground hogs pretty much own the inside of the cemetery and I didn't have a gun with me. Its deeper on the inside - probably closer to 8 ft maybe... I wasn't too sure I could climb back out and I was a little leery of jumping into a place where the vegetation was so think I couldn't see the ground. The day lillies were well over 6ft - biggest ones I've ever seen in my life...

I didn't have Nannie M Dillard on my tree - I've added her to geni and I'm fleshing out the connections to all the other Dillards...

My mother has some notes about some of the people she had been told were in there - I'm trying to confirm those... I'm fairly certain that Isiah James and Julia are buried there... Also William Corbin and Mary (Dillard) Corbin...

Jean Whittington has already found a few references in the old Free Lance newspapers to some others...

Ideally as I can confirm each one - I'll start adding them to the project... As part of the project you'll get a notification each time we make a little progress on that...

I went out there yesterday... My photos don't do it justice. The walls are massive... They are nearly six feet high and about 2 feet thick... I had to climb up on top to take the photos. There is no close road access - its a 10 minute trek to it from over at Mount Hermon Church... I tried to show the scale with the photos... It made me go all Julie Andrews and I just wanted to burst out singing...

d

D,
"The Hills are alive with the sound of "

oops, guess I'm getting carried away.

Great work. Glad you weren't injured on the excursion. Everything makes sense except that on the 1863 map I think the area must be near Stubbs. There are 2 Dillards listed in the area on what was called Toleresville or Orange Tolersville Road. Also, a "Church". I don't see the A Dillard anywhere but above on the map and near Brokenberg.
You may have found the final resting place for many Dillards. Perhaps the my Dillards - John Ryland, Isaiah, their wives and members of their families were buried here on one of the larger Dillard farms with a picturesque view over the years. Then, in 1905(?) Nannie decided to have the cemetery build with proper walls and memorial marker. If the area were cleared there would probably be field stones marking several graves.
You mentioned "old" versus "new" Dillard places. What do we know about that?
I'm sorry to be the one asking all of the questions but providing few, if any, answers but i'm at a disadvantage here in Spring, Tx. I hope to make a trip that way again and perhaps we meet and discuss the family.
Ron

The only real distinction between the "old" and "new" Dillard places was that in 1863 apparently the family had expanded and a son had added the "new" place to the holdings. It was common then to have multiple generations - and sometimes a lot of extended family all in a single household. According to my mother - her aunt Anna (Dillard) Kent - and her Gramps (W.L Kent) - referred to them just as a way to tell which "Dillard place" to avoid confusion... In newspaper accounts of the time - its sometimes actually in the account for an obituary that they were buried at the "old Dillard cemetery" so that was apparently a common way to designate which place even years later...

There may be yet another one... Some references were to the "Turner-Dillard" cemetery - which I haven't figured out yet...

I think we've probably found Isiah and Julia... I need to dig through some of the old newspaper accounts - and at some point Wills and Chancery suits to see what else I can find...

But - you are correct... Most cemeteries from that time just had field stones. Nannie M was unmarried - and from what I'm seeing in the census records - she and several older siblings were still living at the "old place" prior to her death. I suspect that she feared the land would be sold out of the family - so in her will she must have arranged for the marker and wall to be erected. I'm almost sure there will be some record of the will or some court suit, but I haven't had time yet to dig it up...

Tolarsville was a tavern just over the North Anna river in Lousia county...

What is now State Route 208 - or "Courthouse Road" - used to be the "Tolarsville Orange Turnpike"... If you were on your way to Charlottesville - or - the Town of Orange - you couldn't make the trip from Fredericksburg all in the same day. Tolarsville was a place to stop overnight.

Today the "New Bridge" goes across Lake Anna so that Route 208 goes right into the town of Mineral. Tolarsville was there first - and Mineral grew up around it. The old "Stubbs Bridge" was there even back before the Civil War ...

The difference is that during the early 1970's - when Lake Anna was built for the nuclear reactor - they damned up the North Anna river and basically flooding thousands of acres... So - the modern "New Bridge" crosses the whole Lake - but the old bridge used to just cross at one narrow point.

At any rate - yes - the "old place" was closer to where Stubb's Bridge is... The "new place" was back toward the Court house at Brokenburg...

I will definitely throw some sat maps up... I'd love to overlay the old 1863 map with a modern one... Most of the topography is similar - but Lake Anna changed roads and flood plains and some of the general landmarks... I know that a number of family cemeteries ended up being in the area that was going to be underwater - so some of them got relocated.

So - I give Nanie M a lot of credit for fore thought - it would take a small tactical nuke to displace the wall she had built around the cemetery. She definitely didn't want anybody to forget about the Dillards...

Nice discussion. I wish I could add to it, but I'm still on the learning curve when it comes to the Dillard.

Update to this discussion...

The land around the cemetery is now platted up into a subdivision. As of today - the lot containing the cemetery is actually for sale for $42K... In the Commonwealth you can't sell the cemetery, but you can sell the two acres surrounding it...

It is located at: 6709 Water View Lane
Mineral, VA 23117

38.144204, -77.867207

https://www.google.com/maps/place/6709+Water+View+Ln,+Mineral,+VA+2...

Donald, Ron Dillard, I and two of my Dillard uncles were there today. It was full of briars and still all the groundhog holes but the vegetation had died back for the beginning of fall SO,,,, I dove in and there are a fair number of old "field stone" markers throughout the space. Only one that I could make it to had any identifiable markings on it. That one had what appeared to be a "C" with a tail connected to the bottom right of the C and dropping straight down (??? best guess maybe an old form of a "G" ???) followed by a obvious "T". So, a two-letter etching...

Also there is a large granite Obelisk about 5 or 6 ft. tall (Shaped like the tip of the Washington Monument) lying on the ground behind and angled to the left rear of the enclosure. Looking at the top of the standing part of the monument, you can easily see that it was once on the top of that base and has fallen or been knocked off.

I took a couple of photos with Ron's phone so hopefully we'll have a couple that will turn out well enough for him to attach here. No further info on any interred there.

Thanks for all the work you do here! It is really appreciated.

Kevin S

Holy Cow Kevin,

You definitely get my respect and an "Atta Boy" out of petty cash for getting down in there... I was hesitant to get down in there since I wasn't sure about my chance of getting back out again...

I have posted some older photos my mother took back in the 80s... Compared to the newer ones - I thought the obelisk had broken off at the top...

Please share any photos here on the project page...

d

Donald,
I'm having trouble uploading the pictures (3) Kevin and I took at the Dillard family cemetery last week. They are in My Photos on Geni but when I try to add them from my Photos to the project nothing seems to happen. Kevin says that he can see them but they are not shown when I look at the Dillard Family Cemetery project. Any suggestions?

Ron,

Okay...

1) Go to the Dillard Family Cemetery project:

https://www.geni.com/projects/Dillard-Family-Cemetery-Spotsylvania-...

2) Click on the upper right hand side where it says "Photos and Documents"...

https://www.geni.com/projects/Dillard-Family-Cemetery-Spotsylvania-...

3) Now click on "Add Photos"

https://www.geni.com/photo/upload?project_id=18304

4) Now - you are in a screen that says "Upload Photos"...

The tab at the top says "Simple Uploader" but you want to click on the next tab that says "Browse Your Albums"...

5) At this point - it will show your Album, and it will show the photos... You can either pick them one at a time by clicking on each "Select Photo", or you can "Select the Album" and grab all of them (since they are the only photos you've got out there)...

6) Then at the very, very bottom - be sure to remember to click the "Add Photos" button - and it will take all the selected photos and add them into the project...

Ideally - that should do it...

d