Clearfield County PA Archives Tombstone Photo.....Irvin Cemetery ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/clearfield/ ************************************************ http://file.usgwarchives.net/pa/clearfield/cemeteries/irvin-pike.txt Files contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Renee L. Waring, , Aug 2008 This page was last updated: 11 Aug 2008 Tombstone Transcriptions Cemetery: Irvin Cemetery Curwensville, Pike Township, Clearfield County, PA Transcribed from "Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, Present and Past" written by Thomas Lincoln Wall and published in 1925: [You can't see the photo of the tree in this electronic file but this is what it says] The gigantic maple shown above is 17 feet, 5 inches in circumference 6 feet above the ground. It stands on the grounds of John P. Irvin, near his residence, on the bank of Anderson Creek close to where it empties into the West Branch at Curwensville. Here, so far as known, is the first graveyard in the county used by white people. It was, however, an Indian burial place long before the coming of the whites. In 1799 Paul Clover built his cabin on the old Indian path nearby, and his blacksmith shop where Squire John Dale's house now stands. Clover's little daughter Nancy, who died in 1804, was probably the first white burial here. There are some rough head and foot stones yet standing, but they bear no marks. Passing nearby are the Pennsylvania, the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh, and the New York Central Railroads. The Lakes-to-Sea Highway now takes the place of the Erie Pike, which took the place of the Old State Road and the Mead Trail, --the first white man's ways to cross the county. All are in sight of the great maple that still stands, where it stood more than a century and a quarter ago, between the Indian path and the river, which were then the only means of travel through the county, between the east and the west.