Princess Anne Co, VA - Kellam, Murden, Fisher, Herrick This family graveyard was exposed during the construction process of a new housing development located south of Oceana NAS, in the new development of "Castleton", on London Bridge Road (between Dam Neck Road & General Booth Blvd.). The cemetery is near the front of the development, within sight of London Bridge Road & the front entrance of the neighborhood. I spoke with a representative of the development company on 9/14/1998 and he assured me that they will be landscaping & preserving the site and that it will be in a "common area" of the development so that it will be readily accessible to any interested person. The cemetery appears to have been partially destroyed at some point in time, either during the construction process or more probably before that time while the land was being farmed. It appears to me that the cemetery was fairly large at one time. There are now seven gravestones placed side by side with no more than a foot between them. The footstones for these graves have been moved so that they now sit just in front of & slightly to one side of each headstone. The footstones are not all grouped with the appropriate headstone. The representative to the development company told me that these seven graves were moved by the developer from another small family plot nearby on the same property. A short distance from these seven headstones are two other headstones. Some distance from these nine standing headstones is one headstone, broken into several pieces & laying flat on the ground. Then again, some distance from all the other headstones, are two more headstones, both laying flat on the ground. One of these two stones is very legible but the second stone was so worn that I was only able to see fragments of words. It did appear that the etching on the illegible stone was different from all the others, more like it was done by an inexperienced hand. Overall, the arrangement of the stones that I found, basically form a large triangle with the ground on the inside of the triangle having been recently graded. I observed a large number of small, broken stones littering the entire area that, to me, appeared to be the remains of broken headstones. In addition to the transcriptions of the stones listed below, I took a number of pictures of both the gravestones and the site in general. I will be happy to scan any of these pictures and send them, via e-mail or postal mail, to any interested persons. A set of these pictures will also be donated to the Virginia Beach Main Library to be added to the Princess Anne County Archives collection. The layout of the stones & their transcriptions: Area A - group of seven standing headstones and six footstones - all standing within one foot of each other -- this is the group of stones that were moved from a nearby location: ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- 2 4 6 8 10 12 ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- 1. James F. Murden / Born / Feb. 2, 1840 / Died / May 7, 1919 2. J. F. M. 3. Annie R. Murden / Born June 20, 1842 / Died Apr. 15, 1888 / My wife! how fondly shall thy / memory Be shrived within the / chambers of my heart! Thy vir / tuous worth was only known to me / And I can feel how sad it is to part 4. A. R. M. 5. Olevia J. / Kellam / Oct. 13, 1847 / Aug. 6, 1903 6. J. A. K. 7. Ann E.(?) Kellam / Died / May 7, 1885 / Aged 63 yrs 11 mos 27 days 8. O. J. K. 9. Jonathan A. Kellam / Died / April 9, 1881 / Aged 25 yrs 5 mos 7 days 10. A. E. K. 11. Michael P. Kellam / Died / Jan’y 22, 1881 / Aged 62 yrs 10 mos 10 days 12. M. P. K. 13. Margaret E. / Kellam / Born Feb. 15, 1857 / Died Feb. 2, 1858 --------------------------------- Area B -- two standing headstones, within several feet of each other and a short distance from Area A stones: ----- ----- 14 15 ----- ----- 14. Our Darling / Lola Fisher / Dec. 8, 1930 / Aug. 7, 1931 / Asleep in Jesus 15. In Memory of / John T. Fisher / Born Sept. 16, 1868 / Died Feb. 3, 1936 ---------------------------------- Area C - one stone, a good distance from the standing stones, laying flat on the ground and broken into several pieces - because of the breaks in the stone, it was difficult to make out all of the words on the stones - where I am unsure of the correct reading of a word, I have followed the transcribed word with (?). ----- 16 ----- 16. James R. Herrick / Born / Sep. 7, 1826 / Died / Dec. 26(?), 1891 / This(?) granite(?) marks the resting place / of a friend, parent and husband more dear(?) / ____ cannot shroud his face / From memories tender and sincere ----------------------------------- Area D - two stones, both laying flat on the ground, stone #17 is intact & very legible, stone #18 is slightly broken and mostly illegible - these two stones are some distance away from all the other stones ----- 17 ----- ----- 18 ----- 17. Caleb R. Fisher / Co F 41 VA Inf / Confederate States Army / 1833 1905 [My Note: This stone has a Christian cross inside a circle inscribed above the name] 18. This stone is too worn to be legible except in fragments. It does, however, appear to be a different type of lettering than any of the other stones. From what I could see of the lettering it appeared to me to have been hand lettered by a non-professional hand. ------------------------------- Overall layout of the cemetery: Area A Area B Area C Area D ----------------------------- File submitted by JoAnn Seifert - email address: Rseif34270@aol.com OR seif1234@exis.net USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material AND permission is obtained from the CONTRIBUTOR of the file. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other presentation.