David Tuckwiller Hedrick

David, sixth son of Moses and Elizabeth McVey Hedrick, was born on his parents’ farm near Fort Spring, probably at Mt. Vernon. His middle name was from grandmother Hannah Tuckwiller Hedrick. He was too young for the Civil War but made saltpetre in caves along the Greenbrier River for the war. He joined the Mt. Vernon Methodist Church at a young age and was a faithful and pious church man the rest of his life. As a young man he traveled the busy Kanawha Turnpike to get wagon loads of salt in the Kanawha region. He married Mary Elizabeth Fry on March 14, 1867, and about 1870 built a log cabin on his father’s farm. Son William Hedrick was born on the Fry farm; the other children were born in the log house on the Hedrick farm. In 1873 David & Mary purchased a farm "on top" of Muddy Creek Mountain, about midway between "the Gap" and the community centered around Fry Elementary School and Jane’s Chapel Church further to the north along Muddy Creek Mountain Road. The Hedrick book and deeds of the time suggest that they did not live there, or possibly moved away and back again, until 1881. The farm, centered at 37.785705, -80.549384, is where they raised their four children and spent all their adult years. Like most farmers of their day, they were largely self-sufficient, growing, raising, and making most everything they needed on the farm; and depending on horses as their main source of agricultural power. Their subsistence and some amount of income came from a variety of crops and animals. They raised a garden and had apple, peach, and cherry trees and grape vines. The apple orchard was between the house and Muddy Creek Mountain Road. David operated a sawmill on the property and kept bees. He would take farm products by horse and wagon to Lewisburg to sell there. He and his family were faithful members of the local Methodist church, initially co-located with the Falls Cemetery but re-built in 1902 to the north as Jane’s Chapel Church, named for David’s late sister, Jane Hedrick Fry; the Fry family donated the land for the church and the Fry School, across the road. David was a Trustee of the church. After 51 years of devotion to each other in marriage, Mary Elizabeth preceded David in death four days after a buggy accident which occurred on the adjacent farm to the south, where their daughter and her husband, Willard and Alda Hedrick Jones, lived. David died "of a broken heart" three years later, with his physician saying that the death of Mary brought on the heart trouble that ended his life.* Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: May 19 2021, 23:34:50 UTC