Washington County PA Archives Photo Cemeteries.....Raccoon Cemetery

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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Gary L. Caldwell <kangal4910@garlin.com> May 2023

http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/washington/photos/cemeteries/raccoon-candor

Raccoon Cemetery
Candor, Washington County, PA

Lat: 40° 23' 37"N, Lon: 80° 18' 26"W
Robinson Township

     Directions from Midway PA: Drive northeast on Prospect 
Street. Take the 1st left onto Washington Avenue and 
continue onto Midway Candor Road for about 2 miles. Turn 
right onto Candor Road. The church and cemetery are on the 
right.

     According to "History of Raccoon Church, Candor, Pa., 
1778-1899" by Margaret S. Sturgeon, published about 1899 and 
Boyd Crumrine, "History of Washington County, Pennsylvania 
with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and 
Prominent Men" (Philadelphia: L. H. Leverts & Co., 1882), 
the land on which the church and cemetery are located was 
part of a tract taken up by Col. Samuel Beelor on a Virginia 
certificate in 1780, he having settled there in 1774. The 
cause of the settlement of people at this place was that the 
Raccoon Church was located here. But few habitations were 
erected here before 1817. This cemetery was established in 
1790.

     The church and associated cemetery is located in 
Robinson Township, in the northern part of Washington 
County. It derives its name from a creek called "the 
Raccoon" as the congregation is situated on the head-waters 
of that stream. Raccoon was one of the oldest churches in 
Western Pennsylvania. According to a sign at the beginning 
of the cemetery, it was begun about 1790 but the historical 
records indicated that the first person buried in this 
cemetery was Mrs. Martha Bigger, who died in a fort located 
on Miller's Run, where the family had fled for safety from 
the predatory excursions of the Indians. A stone tablet 
marks her grave bearing the date of May 20th, 1780.

     The location of this church in the then wilderness was, 
no doubt, determined by its proximity to Beilor's Fort, 
whose location has been pointed out by our forefathers as 
standing immediately southeast of the cemetery.