On a warm day in June 2007 I took another of my numerous excursions with noted West Point, Kentucky historian, Richard Briggs. Previous excursions have taken me to the extinct Rock Haven Lime Kiln and the West Point Brick Yard. These excursions led me to write books on the lime kiln and the brick yard. Not all excursions have led to books but all the others always proved to be interesting and informative. Richard has been a hiker as well as an historian/author/genealogist (not to mention soldier, postmaster, tour guide, commercial fisherman and newspaper editor). His travels have taken him to many little known and forgotten places. Accompanying him on his travels has been my pleasure.
Some months ago, during a discussion over breakfast at Rhonda's Inn in West Point, Kentucky, Richard told me of a cemetery he had visited about forty years ago that rested in wooded area between Eastview and Solway. He recalled, "the cemetery was overgrown and had many handsome stone monuments. One, in particular, was very unique and large with poems and genealogy information carved on either side of the large stone. There was an abandoned two story brick house nearby. It looked like it had not been lived in for many years. Inside, the rooms were papered with old newspapers. I spent a long time reading the old 1800's newspapers. Off a ways was a log barn made of interlocking logs, some well over twenty-five feet long. The cemetery, house and barn were on Linder's creek." I believed this had the makings of a fine excursion, though I doubted we would be able to locate the cemetery again. I telephoned Richard one evening to schedule an excursion. At 8:00 AM, on a Friday morning in June we left Elizabethtown to locate that cemetery, house, and barn that Richard recalled visiting so many years ago. I asked Richard if he could determine more exactly how long ago he had visited the site. He told me, "My kids are in their mid-fifties, and as I recall, they were with me and they were no more than ten and twelve years old at the time. So that would make it close to forty years."
I thought it would be a good idea if Richard could tell me ahead of time what the directions were that would get us to where we wanted to go. He was pretty precise; "Well, you leave Elizabethtown on US 62 which is Leitchfield Road and you go down past Stephensburg to Kentucky 84. Then you turn right on Kentucky 84 and go through the small town of Eastview, and about seven or eight miles further down the road is where you'll see these two churches off to the right. And one of them has a bright red roof. And you might mistake it for a Pizza Hut store. You turn right to go by the churches." It turned out that the road on which we turned right is Laurel Ridge Road. "And then about one and two-tenths of a mile past the churches is where we will come to a dirt road. We will turn left on that dirt road. The Needham cemetery and what is left of the house and barn are down that dirt road."
It turned out that Richard was right-on. We did see the churches and turned left. The church with the red roof was the Smith Chapel United Methodist Church. This church shared a parking lot with the second church, the Needham Cumberland Presbyterian Church that was established in 1859.
As Richard had predicted, we did find the remnants of a dirt road about a mile down Laurel Ridge Road. Though no longer a traveled dirt road, it was clear that this was the landmark we were looking for. We proceeded down the road (only the remnants of a road - not even a gravel surface) for about ½ mile than walked another mile when in the distance we saw the old barn. We knew we were on the right track.
Richard was surprised by the condition of the barn. It had changed little in the forty years since he last saw it. After over 150 years the barn is still an impressive structure. It is about forty feet square with a porch-like roof all around the building. Most of the logs on the sides are about thirty feet long and hand hewed, the scars of the ax still clearly visible.
Prior to reaching the site of the barn, Richard recalled what he saw some forty years ago: "The barn, to me was a masterpiece because it was made out of logs, huge logs. And they'd all been hand-hewn by ax. And some of them, a number of them, went the whole length of the barn. And the barn, I believe, had a metal roof on it, though the metal roof was most likely a later addition."
The thirty foot long hand hewed logs were notched on the ends and stacked one atop the other on the four corners of the structure. The barn was a two story building with a loft. The floor was constructed of planks setting atop beams that were laid on the ground.
In a later interview with Bob Owseley (of Cecelia, KY), the present owner of the land, I discovered the Needham homestead on Linder's Creek had been a center of activity in western Hardin County in pioneer days. Located on the Needham farm were a cotton gin, saw mill, grain mill, and a carding machine - a machine which fashioned wool into long strings for spinning. The mill was located on Linder's Creek that flowed in front of the Needham home.
We than began our search for the cemetery.
The above photograph will show the difficulty encountered in locating the Needham Cemetery. In the photograph above, the cemetery (its iron fence) can be seen in the center of the photograph. The next photograph shows Richard Briggs standing just outside the cemetery. There is clear evidence for over fifty burial sites in the cemetery - though there are certainly many more as evidenced by the many locations with sunken ground indicating a burial site. Un-inscribed fieldstone markers are present, as well as markers weathered to illegibility. The cemetery appears to be rectangular in shape and about 250 feet wide and 500 feet long, enclosed by a fine iron fence that has been knocked down by falling trees in some places.
Prior to arrival at the site of the cemetery Richard told of his recollections of the Needhams and the monument we were seeking: "One of the Needhams was very wealthy. He went to California and was in the oil business. And he came back, I don't know when this was, but it was a good many years ago, maybe seventy-five or a hundred years ago, he had a monument made for his family, his mother and his father. On one side of the stone he had a lot of poems. On the other side he had inscribed where all his brothers and sisters were buried. It told where all these early Needhams, the ones that migrated away from here, were born, and when and where they died. I recall some were buried in Illinois, some in Kentucky, and some in California. And I forgot where else. I can't tell you the exact size of that stone, but as I recall you might be able to hide an automobile behind it."
Later research by Richard led to a 1956 article in the Hardin County Enterprise that stated the granite marker was erected about 1926 by Henry Clay Needham, one of the elder Needhams' eleven children.
One side of the handsome granite monument utilizes poetry to pay tribute to Parkman and Rebecca Needham, parents of Henry Clay Needham who may have written the poetry himself. The poems are titled "My Fathers Hand" and "My Mothers Voice."
My later research on the internet led to a great deal of genealogical information on the Needham family. I found that Parkman Smith Needham originated in Smithfield Bradford County, Pennsylvania. He was born 24 April 1812. His father was Timothy Stocking Needham, his mother was Ruth Smith. Parkman's wife, Rebecca Sandusky South, was born in Washington County, Kentucky 19 November 1813. Parkman and Rebecca would marry in Hardin County, Kentucky on 16 December 1834. Parkman died on 8 June 1886. Rebecca died on 14 June 1887. The first Needham of this family was born in 1638 in Middlesex, England and married Ruth Chadwell in the same city. Both died in Essex County, Massachusetts.
The reverse side of the monument documents the date of birth/death and burial place of the eleven children of Parkman and Rebecca Needham -- ELINOR STOCKETT NEDHAM 1835-1941 UNKNOWN; ELIZABETH ROGERS NEEDHAM 1837-1843 CUMBERLAND CO. ILL; GEORGE NEEDHAM 1839-1903 HERE; JOHN NEEDHAM 1840-1921 CHAMPAIGN, ILL; TIM NEEDHAM 1842-1918 WILLIAMSTOWN, KY; ANNA MARIAH NEEDHAM 1845-1918 CUMBERLAND CO. ILL; LOUISA NEEDHAM BARNETT 1847-1919 LOGAN, OHIO; MARTHA M. BARANETT 1848-1923 BERKLEY, CAL; HENRY CLAY NEEDHAM 1851-1936 LOS ANGELES, CAL; LETITIA DORAN BOOTH 1854-1897 MEADE CO. KY; MARGARET OLIVER 1857-1903 McPHERSON, KAN
Others buried in the Needham Cemetery.
Ruth was the wife of Timothy S. Needham and the mother of Parker Needham, who would prosper greatly and have eleven children with his wife, Rebecca.
Timothy S. Needham was the father of Parker Needham. Timothy was one of Hardin County's first settlers. He came to Kentucky from Pennsylvania. Many of his descendents are buried in the cemetery. It was Parker who would build a handsome two-story brick house, log barn, and mills on the site.
OTHER BURIALS
Barnett, Leslie, Mar 13, 1876 - Oct 11, 1876, Son of Rev. W.B. & Lulie
Barnett, Ruth, ??????????Daughter of W.B. & Lulie
Barnett, Wiley, Son of W.B. & Lulie Barnett
Daugherty, John B., Apr 10, 1872 - Sept 10, 1950
Daugherty, W.T., July 2, 1860 - July 15, 1945
Ford, Moses, Born in Mass., Dec 8, 1776 - Apr 3, 1831
Ford, Sibbel, Born in Conn., May 10, 1770 - Apr 1, 1847
Givans, Mellona, Sept 19, 1819 - Apr 25, 1851, Married Oct 9, 1834 James M.
Helms, PVT George W., CO D, 54 VA INF, CSA, Mar 31, 1832 - Sep 7, 1916
Helms, PVT Benjamin, Prestons's Reserve Corps, CSA, 1820 - 1906
Needham, Elias, Died Sept 25, 1838, Age 10 yrs. 3 mos. Son of Timothy & Ruth
Needham, Rev. George, 1839 - 1903
Needham, George B., Died Sept 9, 1838, Age 7 yrs., 26 das.
Needham, John W., Died Sept 25, 1838, Age 12 yrs. 2 mos., 17 das., Son of Timothy S. & Ruth
Needham, Otis, Died Nov 1882, age 27 das. 2nd son of Timothy & Ruth
Needham, Otis, Died Aug 31, 1882, Age 5 yrs. 4 mos., Son of Timothy & Ruth
Needham, Rebecca South, 1813 - 1837, Wife of Parkman Smith Needham
Needham, Ruth, Mar 2, 1792 - Aug 11, 1864, Wife of T.S. Needham
Needham, Timothy S., July 14, 1788 - Dec 31, 1855 (Husband of Ruth)
Reed, Charlie, ?????????
Reed, Laura, ??????????
Reed, Nancy, ?????????
Reed, Stella, Jan 25, 1892, Infant Daughter of S.H. & Mollie Reed
Thurman, Lucretta, Aug 23, 1817 - July 27, 1855, Wife of Phillip, & Daughter of Moses Sibbet
11 Children of Parkman & Rebecca Needham as shown on the single large monument
Having located and examined the Needham barn and cemetery our attention turned to locating the house where Parkman and Rebecca raised their eleven children. Richard recalled that "The house was between the barn and cemetery and uphill from Linder's Creek. It was a four room brick house with a fireplace in each room. It looked like it had not been occupied for many years. The roof over part of the house had collapsed but the walls were still standing. On the second floor you could see where somebody had years and years ago painted an eagle, a patriotic symbol, on the wall of one of the rooms. The upstairs rooms had been papered over with newspapers from the late 1800s. Some of the papers were from Elizabethtown and some from Illinois. I spent quite a bit of time reading them. The house was in pretty good shape."
I had hoped to find the eagle in the upstairs room so I could photograph it and the newspapers on the walls as well as the fireplaces in each room. This was not to be. Locating the house proved difficult. The trees and undergrowth were dense. We could have passed within fifty feet of the house and not sighted it. We were fortunate to locate it as we were about to give up and await the winter when the vegetation was less dense. We stumbled upon the ruins of the house.
Upon finding and inspecting the house we found the roof completely collapsed along with the back wall. The front wall of the house and small portions of the side walls were standing. The ruins were overgrown with weeds and bushes as well as trees. Unfortunately it was not possible to stand back from the house and get a picture due to the obstruction of tree and brush. It was still apparent that the house was once a fine brick home.
Richard can be seen standing alongside one of the two first floor front windows of the house. The front door was between the two windows. The front wall of the house was the only one intact and standing.
The roof of the house had collapsed and the back wall had collapsed inward toward the front of the house. As seen above the front wall remains standing along with small portions of the side walls. It appeared that a metal roof had been applied over the original wood shingles on the roof.