At 11:44 AM -0500 1/12/1999, [email protected] wrote: >Does anyone have any information on when the Danbury newspaper was started? 1870: Newspaper "The Old Constitution" established in Danbury <Stok 136 1872: John Pepper buys "The Old Constitution" and renames it "The Danbury Reporter" <Stok 136 >Also, I am wondering if there were funeral homes back in the late 1800's in >Stokes County which kept records and where those records might be. I am >particularly looking for any information pertaining to the burial sites of my >great great and great great great grandfathers, John Leonard Redman and >Franklin Redman. I haven't heard of any funeral homes from that period. Have you checked the two-volume edition of cemetery records? "Cemeteries of Rockingham and Stokes Counties." I don't have the exact citation but many local libraries have it. Unfortunately for us researchers, a lot of the family cemeteries have been lost to development. Many people in the country were buried in simple pine boxes in family cemeteries with graves marked only by a field stone. Often they were laid out in the parlor for viewing. One of my Stokes ancestors was buried in 1880 in the Meadows area of Stokes County. His estate records in Raleigh listed debts for burial clothes and coffin but no undertaker's fees: 9-6-1881 "Bettie Warren swears list of debts owed her by John Warren and his estate, including his burial clothes (Pepper & Sons 5.87 1/2), coffin (Robt Glidwell 5.00), loan to adm. (2.50), to men that laid off widdow's dower (2.00), stripping tobacco (5.00), saving wheat (2.00)" An earlier death resulted in this payment: 10-1-1876 John Warren pays Wm. L. Taylor 10.00 'in full of a walnut coffin for Wm Warren deceast' Again, no undertaker appeared in the records. Hope this helps. --- Mike Warren <http://www.netunlimited.net/~mwarren> Sine Nomine Farm, Tobaccoville, NC