Descendants Visits Newly Unearthed Graves
Jacob “Jake” McCown and his father, James “Jim” William McCown Jr., recently visited the McKee/Big Spring Cemetery in Kerrs Creek to see the recently unearthed tombstones of two of their ancestors.
Civil War Capt. John Alexander McCown (18401918) and his wife Catherine Selena Dixon McCown (1856-1899) were Jim’s great-grandparents, and Jake’s great-great-grandparents.
Jim and Jake McCown had no idea where they were buried, until members of the McKee/Big Spring Cemetery Association uncovered them beneath the turf after they were located with ground penetrating radar.
“I’ve been by this place a thousand times,” says 31-year-old Jake, “and never imagined I had family buried here.”
The tombstones are elegantly wrought with beguiling epitaphs: Selena’s reads: “Mother, thou hast from us flown, To the regions far above, We to thee erect this stone, Consecrated by our love.”
John McCown never remarried after his wife’s early death at 43 in 1899, when the last of their eight children was 13 years old. His stone reads: “Thou who driest the mourner’s tears, How dark this world would be, Did we not know our father dear, was only called to thee.”
The modern-day Mc-Cowns still farm an original 220 acres in Rockbridge Baths their ancestor bought from the Borden Grant in the mid-18th century.
“Working in the fields and woods rebuilding these old fence lines and walking the same steps as my ancestors, means a lot to me,” said Jake McCown, who recently took his young children to visit their newly “discovered” great-great-great-grandparents in the graveyard.
The McKee/Big Spring Cemetery Association is hoping to collect stories from anyone who has family buried in this cemetery, eventually to complete, as far as possible, a record of who lies in the unmarked graves and, too, biographical information of anyone buried there.
Descendants are asked to send contributions of words or funds (to date, six of the 21 headstones are being restored by the families who own them) to the Association’s chair, Pauline McKee, [email protected] or 1837 Back Creek Court, Asheboro, NC 27205.
