MONROE COUNTY--JOHNSON CEMETERY--HUNTS Several descendants of William G. "Billy" Hunt (ca. 1819-w.p. 1898, Barren County) and Catherine Shive Hunt have reliably confirmed that both are buried in unmarked graves in a small family cemetery at the Big Valley farm of Keith and Carol Light, in the community of Lamb, Monroe County, Kentucky. Joe Black Johnson is also buried there, also without a gravestone. This cemetery has no public name, but the Johnson family has apparently owned this farm for more than one hundred and twenty years. A family progenitor, David Johnson (1820-1883), is buried there, along with other members of this Johnson family. "Arterburn, Francis, McCue, Ward, and Wilson" are the other surnames to be found there. This cemetery was not included in Peden's Monroe County cemetery book, but has since been published (see "Kentucky Ancestors," Spring 1992, p. 224). There are 13 inscribed gravestones along with some native stone markers and an unknown number of unmarked graves. Why the Hunts are there seems a mystery to their living descendants I have talked to. Billy & Catherine Hunt's home farm was on Antioch-Tracy Road, near Antioch Church, a couple of miles away in southwest Barren County. The Johnson and Hunt families intermarried, and this could be a clue. It's also possible that the Hunt family once owned this farm. One Johnson family tradition associates the early history of this farm with the Flowers family. Joel Flowers was an early settler in the community, but doesn't appear in the Monroe County Census until 1840. Tradition also connects this farm with an early slaveholder, possibly Flowers. The surviving stone spring-house is believed to have been built by slaves, and the traditional sites of slave quarters and their burying ground have been preserved in local memory. As far as I can tell, neither of these Hunt or Johnson families ever owned slaves. David Johnson first appears in the Monroe County Census in 1860. The earliest inscribed Johnson stone in this cemetery is for a 2-year old, the daughter of J.N. Johnson, who died in 1877. The earliest inscribed stone there belongs to William Wilson, also a 2-year old, who died in 1856. Although some of the other surnames found in this cemetery may have been relatives (of the Johnsons) or tenant farmers, it seems impossible to tell whether any might represent an earlier landowner. Billy Hunt's grandfather, Jonathan Hunt, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War from Rowan County, North Carolina, was in southwest Barren County by 1810, in the vicinity of what would later become the boundary with Monroe County--around Fountain Run, Tracy, and Lamb. Billy's grandmother, Alceia Berry Hunt, apparently died early, in Kentucky. Alceia Berry Hunt could have been an early burial in this cemetery. Jonathan moved on to Morgan County, Missouri soon after 1840 to join some of his other children and died there. But Jonathan's son, John Hunt (1792-1855)--Billy's father, and his mother Martha "Patsy" Simmons Hunt (1799-1859), remained behind. Their burial sites are unknown. One possibility for John and Patsy could be the old Simmons family cemetery at Fountain Run, but they might be in Johnson Cemetery, at Lamb, especially if John's mother was there. (The Shive family cemetery is in Metcalfe County.) Perhaps someone else can help fill-in some of the missing pieces of this puzzle! Thanks, Charles R. Arterburn __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com