I received a request for one Jacob Pilliard 1850 - Jun. 14, 1895. The request placed him in the Lebanon Baptist Church cemetery in Jefferson County. I’d not heard of this cemetery so I did some research. I pulled up the Jefferson County Historical Society’s cemetery transcription list, which I use frequently to pre-check and cross-check requests. Their lists are very good, to a point, and most of the transcribing was done in the early 2000’s so recent burials don’t show up. To create these lists, volunteers traveled to each cemetery with the previous transcription list and made note of new stones, missing stones, etc. since the last visit. There is a very low error rate among these lists. One problem though, they didn’t have a list for Lebanon Baptist Church. This was unusual.
I did some more online research searching for “Lebanon Baptist” Jefferson County MO. and came up with a familiar document. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nebuffal/jeffcomo/churches.htm
This is an extract from :
GOODSPEED's HISTORY OF
Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Crawford, & Gasconade Counties, MissouriChicago: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1888
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FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PRESENT; TOGETHER WITH SUNDRY PERSONAL,BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL SKETCHES AND NUMEROUS FAMILYRECORDS; BESIDES A VALUABLE FUND OF NOTES,ORIGINAL OBSERVATION'S, ETC., ETC.
I’ve read this document before, lots of times. It is essentially a history of the county as of 1888. Goodspeed Publishing did lots of these in the 1880’s.
The relevant entry is quoted here:
“Lebanon Baptist Church, in the east part of the county, was organized about the year 1850, and five years later a frame church edifice was erected at a cost of $600. Its pastors have been James P. Cape, J. M. Hensley and S. Frazier. Its membership numbers 77.”
As it turns out, Goodspeed got this wrong. I replied to Phyllis, the requestor and let her know I was having problems ID’ing the cemetery. She sent more information:
"Jacob Pilliard died on June 14, 1895, while rescuing another man who had fallen into a well" (source: Deaths from Jefferson County Newspapers 1866-1920, by the Jefferson County Genealogical Society; entry of November 7, 1895). He is buried in the Lebanon Baptist Church cemetery at Danby, Missouri, near Bloomsdale."
The mere mention of the two villages made things clearer. Danby is little more than an intersection in the southeastern tip of Jefferson County. Bloomsadale is a little larger but it is actually located on the northeastern tip of Ste. Genevieve County, our neighbor to the south. I called up a map and located both towns. It made sense. These two places are only a few miles apart in an area of the county that to this day is not heavily developed or populated. Back in the late 1800’s it would be easy to not know exactly where the county line was. I grew up in rural areas, and without signs to indicate otherwise, back roads drift in and out of neighboring counties without notice. So I expanded my search and looked for “Lebanon Baptist Church” in Ste Genevieve, Mo. and got an interesting hit. http://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills081/hlrbillspdf/5018C.01.pdf
This was a Missouri House Bill celebrating the church’s long history:
“Whereas, the members now pause to recognize the Lebanon Baptist Church, in Bloomsdale, Missouri, Which is celebrating its 175th anniversary on September 21, 2008; and Whereas, built in 1833 by John Lee. . . . . .Whereas, in 1860, a frame house for worship was built, and today there is a Prayer Garden with the original stones hewn for the original church in front of the old stile-block, inviting anyone who wishes to commune with God. . .”
Essentially indicating that the church, In Ste G. County has occupied the same land since the early 1800’s. So Pilliard’s family lived somewhere between Danby and Bloomsdale, members of the family were buried in both places. I printed a map of the area and made plans to drive to Bloomsdale during the weekend and resolve it once and for all. I reported my findings and told Phyllis and Grace, one of Phyllis’s relatives who was providing her information as a former resident of this area, that I would try to photograph the entire cemetery if it were small enough, in hopes of picking up other family members.
* Grave finder tip! Whenever you get a request and find a stone, look around for others with the same last name and photograph them as well. These may well be family the requestor hasn’t discovered yet!
Saturday rolled around, too hot, too tired. It would wait for Sunday.
Sunday morning I printed out the list I had compiled from findagrave.com, listing all possible names for Lebanon Baptist in both the Ste. G and erroneous Jeff Co. listings. I grabbed up the camera, checked the battery (lesson learned the hard way) grabbed a bottle of water (essential) and headed to the beauty shop in Festus. (first things first, it was haircut day) I got right in and out, skipped my traditional visit to the adjoining $1 store and proceeded south down the wrong road. 61/67 splits south of Festus, I initially took 67, which was wrong.
After about fifteen minutes I realized my mistake and turned around and took 61. Within minutes I was out of my area of familiarity. Very rural, except for a golf course, thinning civilization, then a curve to a small bridge over a creek and a sign indicating I had just entered Ste. G county. Within a minute I passed the Church. I turned around and immediately felt stupid. The cemetery was prominent, directly adjacent to the church. In front of the church were about thirty cars. I looked at my watch, it was eleven A.M. For reasons I’ll not go in to here I’d never even considered the possibility that there would be people at a church on a Sunday morning. I weighed my options and decided to go ahead and give it a try. I slipped in between two minivans parked in the gravel/grass and quietly popped open my trunk to retrieve the camera and my official findagrave.com cap.There was no noise coming from the church so I assumed its flock was buttoned up tight to keep the hot air outside and the AC inside. I didn’t want to interfere with services or talk to anyone, so I just behaved as though I belonged there, like a regular guy making regular rounds at a cemetery. I didn’t even look toward the church as I stopped and took a couple of wide shots of the cemetery.
Findagrave didn’t h
ave a full cemetery shot for this one so I thought I’d take care of that as well. I got lucky. Only one other time have I entered a cemetery and walked right up to the stone I was looking for. I didn’t immediately see Jacob’s but I did see two newer looking prominent stones with Phyllis’ other family name, I’d snag those as well. Sarah was on my findagrave list but Lee wasn’t.
Jacob was just to the left of them, a tall, flat top obelisk, old, fading, discolored and smoothed with time, but still legible. I was getting a little edgy, uncomfortable thinking that I might be being watched or judged. I didn’t want to disrespect the church, its members or the community at large. Some people can be pretty weird when it comes to cemeteries, I’m not, but I recognize that others are, and I didn’t want to give anyone the impression that I was desecrating sacred ground, so I decided to take my first few captures and call it a day rather than spend an hour taking pictures of every stone. I had what I needed to fill the request, plus a bonus shot or two. Good enough, I was in and out in less than ten minutes. Once home I tweaked the photos, squaring them up, cropping them and resizing them to 27% of initial size (findagrave has its limits and so does my internet connection.) I posted Jacob’s photos and those of the cemetery as well as the new find, Lee. I emailed Phyllis and Grace mentioning Lee as a possible relative. I heard back from Phyllis a little later. It turns out that Lee, who died at the age of five or six was Phyllis’ great uncle, her grandmother’s younger brother whom she had only ever heard referred to as ‘Fritz’. Lee was his middle name. She had not even known where to start looking for his grave. She also sent me some back story on Jacob, who died in 1895 at the age of thirty five. It turns out he did indeed die rescuing another man from a well. A newspaper account from that time, June 1895, reads as follows:
“The sad news reached Ste. Genevieve last Saturday of the death of Mr. Jacob Pilliard, Justice of the Peace of Jackson Township, who was overcome by foul air while rescuing a man who was cleaning out a well on his farm near Bloomsdale. He had employed a couple of men to do the job and was cutting wheat nearby when one of the men called for assistance. Mr. Pilliard ran at once to the well and was let down by means of a bucket. He succeeded in getting the man out, but was himself overcome and when taken out of the well was more dead than alive. He never regained consciousness and died in a few hours. Mr. Pilliard was a young man who was well liked and respected by all his acquaintances. He leaves a wife and family who have the sympathy of the community in their sad loss.”
What a tragic, real, heartwarming story. The name on this stone, not unlike the hundreds of others I’ve photographed, had a story. This was a real person, a good person with family, work, respect, responsibilities as well as selfless courage. Over one hundred years after his death his descendants are still working to connect to him. This is why I continue to do this.
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On Tuesday morning I received an email from Grace, it turns out that she’s got another ancestor in the same cemetery. She’s put in a findagrave request but also sent me an email directly, alerting me to it. She also asked if, since I live in Jeff Co. I might know some people she used to know. I replied that I’d be happy to return to the cemetery, on Saturday. I also had to tell her that I’ve only lived here for a few short years and had no local family history and actually know very few people here. I ending it by adding:
“ I've got no family history here myself, so I live vicariously through other people's ancestors.”
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