This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/gAC.2ACE/2678.2 Message Board Post: According to "Some Old Homes in Frederick County, Virginia", by Garland Quarles p. 271-273 Quarles quotes Dr. William Henry Foote, DD., a Presbyterian minister (note the Opequon Church is Presby..) Apparently, Mary Marcus/Marquis' stone is the oldest monumental stone in the valley. On one side has Mary & 2 children, the other that they were from Ireland 1737. Grants by Hite to Robert Wilson May 5, 1740 (ODB 4, p. 14) and to Thomas WIlson (ODB 1, p. 442) It is thought that John WIlson aquired some of this land. His will, probated April 7, 1762, John devised his land to James Marquis & William Marquis. (FWB 3, p. 40) One provision was that James Marquis should change his name to Wilson Marquis. This book states the assumption that John never remarried after his wife's death, and no children other than the 2 buried with her. Also that James and William Marquis were Mary's brothers. Highly unlikely that he would have left property to anyone other than a child of his own, and had someone change their name to his if he had children of his own. Tradition says he was a schoolmaster. This contradicts your information that he had many children, but you can check with Frederick County for copies of the wills and probates of such, using the above will & deed books & pages. "Shenandoah Vlaley Pioneers and Their Descendants" by T. K. Cartmell p. 169 also references Mary's stone & Dr. Foote's "Sketches of Virginia" that John Wilson carved the stone himself. It would seem that he stayed on this land until his death in about 1762.