In the book published by The Laurel County Historical Society; Page 369 Taylor / Blackwater Cemetery Location: Intersection of 1803 and 1189 "Note: Taylor / Blackwater cemetery and Blackwater Cemetery are the same cemetery, but they were typed separately due to a misunderstanding. Most of the name listed under Blackwater were recorded in 1979. The names listed in Taylor / Blackwater were recorded in 1987. The cemetery is know as the Taylor Cemetery not Blackwater". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------- Page 57; Old Blackwater Cemetery Directions: On Blackwater Road, 0.1 mile east of junction 1803. mostly Cheek's buried there. Two Taylors' Samuel T 1881 1928 Mary A 1884 1916 Thanks, Don ---------- From: psusers Sent: Sunday, September 28, 1997 3:52 PM To: SASSER-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Vietta's question Vietta, In your message of 23 September 1997 you asked about the name of "the cemetery on Blackwater where Isaac & Rhoda Taylor are buried." Although I visit the place quite often (and expect eventually to spend much more time there), I really don't know the correct answer. In a message that I posted not long ago, I believe I called it the "Blackwater Taylor Graveyard" to distinguish it from other cemeteries on Blackwater, such as the one six tenths of a mile away where Henry Sasser is buried. People living on the Knox County side of the hill used to refer to it simply as the "Blackwater Graveyard" (as though that was the only one) or would simply say so and so was "buried on Blackwater" or that "The Blackwater Decoration Day is in June." I suspect that this vagueness is a result of a different kind of uncertainty. I always heard that Isaac Taylor (born in 1792 , my g g g grandfather), who settled there (my understanding is that the house was across the road), designated (deeded???) the spot as a place for his family to be buried. Most of the people who have been buried there indeed are of Taylor lineage or are somehow related by blood or marriage to the family. There are some exceptions because--to my knowledge--nobody is authorized to decide who can be put there, and I vaguely remember hearing a complaint nearly half a century ago about somebody being buried there who was unrelated to the Taylors. I suppose that the place is sometimes seen as a community rather than a family burial place. As I seem to remember, you once informed us about a book on Laurel County cemeteries published by the county genealogical society. Since I still have not seen that book, I wonder what the Blackwater Graveyard is called in it. Some members of the list may have notiiced my seemingly eccentric use of the old-fashioned (?) word "graveyard." I don't really know the story of the shift in usage to "cemetery." I suppose it is to avoid using a term that includes such an unpleasant word as "grave." But if that is the case it provides another example of how euphemisms take on the same sort of unattractiveness that they are designed to avoid. I hardly want to limit my vocabulary to words that my ancestors used, but when it comes to describing the places where they are buried I like to use a term that seems more authentic, one that they too would have used and that I used as a child. Thus while I speak of city "cemeteries," I often prefer to speak of rural family "graveyards." Of course, maps, signs, and obiituaries do not use the latter term, and I certainly do not want to force my preferences on others. I began to think that I was using a completely obsolete word until I kept running across references to "graveyards" in other countries (and heard the same word on CBS News last summer in reference to Ireland). As for Isaac Taylor's grave, some members of my grandparents' generation told me that they thought he was buried in an older graveyard close by (a story that admittedly does not mesh very well with what I have already said about his giving the land for the main one), So I was suprised when somebody put up markers for his and Rhoda Smith Taylor's graves. I trust that this is the right spot; even if it is not, I am happy to have the stones with their names somewhere. However, I understand that there are some graves over on the ridge just across the little hollow (over which graves, as someone was complaining angrily last summer, some people are living in trailers). Decoration Day at Blackwater is held every year in mid-June (I believe it is the second Sunday after the first Saturday?). There are quite a few people buried there with the name Sasser, and a good percentage of the others have some Sasser lineage. Many members of the Sasser list probably already know about the place; for those who do not, I suggest it as a source of genealogical information. Although for various reasons I have not been able to be there every year, I also recommend the annual Decoration Day as a genealogical event. A religious service used to be held there under the big oak tree each year, but that has been dropped. I have read that "Decoration Day" is a term that came into usage after the Civil War. At first, I inferred from this that the event at Blackwater goes back to that time, but my mother tells me that it was not started until about the late 1930s. The graveyard, she says, was terribly neglected prior to that. Now it is well taken care of. It is quite beatiful, especially for anyone coming toward it from the direction of Highway 229 and the Sasser/Dixon Cemetery. I invite responses and corrections from those who have better answers than I. Glenn ***************************************** Glenn E. Perry Department of Political Science Indiana State University Terre Haute, IN 47809 USA E-Mail: psperrg@scifac.indstate.edu (812)237-2505 (office) (812)234-5661 (home) ****************************************