BECKWITH GRAVEYARD
Wood Co. WV

Some Pioneer Graveyards of Wood Co. by John A. House

Winter wind temper thy icy blast.
Harm not those beneath the mound.
Summer breeze whisper softly for at last
Here asleep they wait the trumpet sound.
(R. H.)

In passing over the gravelled road from Parkersburg to Belleville,
after leaving the village of Lubeck, which lies on the flatlands on
the "divide" between the waters of Neal's Run and Little Sandy Creek,
one goes to the head of one branch of the latter, crosses a very low
gap in a white oak and hickory ridge, and comes over on to Lee Creek
(South Fork - the "Broad Run" of the pioneers), just below the mouth
of Woodyard's Fork, at the old Beckwith home.

Here, on a low point to the left of the road, in a little enclosure about
one hundred by one hundred twenty-five feet, is the private burying
ground of this family of Wood County pioneers, who settled at this
spot in early pioneer days.

The farm has passed into the hands of others, strangers or descendants
so far removed they seem to have lost interest in their ancestry.  Though
enclosed by a good fence, the cemetery is grown up with brush, briers,
burrs and weeds, until one can scarcely get among the decayed and
neglected tombstones.

I noted names and dates:

Barnes Beckwith, March 22nd, 1855, aged seventy-eight years,
four months.  (Born August 23rd, 1776)
Betsey Beckwith, August 18th, 1826, aged thirty-nine years, 10 months
(Born July 29th, 1787).
Betsey Beckwith, September 24th, 1846, aged thirty-two years, five months
(born April 1st, 1814).  (She was twelve years old when her mother died.)
Rebecca Beckwith, March 16th, 1839, aged twenty-seven years, four months
(born October 9th, 1811).  (About fifteen years old when her mother
died.)
Barnes Beckwith, 1818 - 1905.
Virginia (his wife), 1820 - 1899.
Barnes Beckwith married Virginia Samuels in 1840.
L. A. Beckwith (Lewis) born 1816 - died 1896.  *Lewis marked out and
Lawrence penciled in.
Mary A. (wife) born 1813 - died 1893.
They probably inherited the old homestead, as around them in the
old cemetery sleep many of their children.
Elizabeth Beckwith, 1846 - 1916.
Tapley Beckwith, 1848 - 1919.
Richard B. Beckwith, 1845, two years old.
Lewis Beckwith, 1841 - 19--  (no date)  Flag.  *23 penciled in after 19.
Elizabeth (wife) 1892, aged forty-three  (49).
Adaline, daughter to A. N. Beckwith, died May 16th, 1890, in her
sixty-sixth year.
Philip Wigal died June 17th, 1852, in his fifty-first year.
Elizabeth Napier ("Mother") 1819 - 1905.  *Gilchrist penciled in between
Elizabeth and Napier.
Infant of P. and S. Wigal, April 19th, 1815.
Otto F. Eberhardt, January 12th, 1878, aged fifty-one.
Sarah G. (his wife) August 18th, 1828 - October 16th, 1896.
Mary Smith, January 8th, 1854 - 1898.
Two children of Charles and Mary Smith.  These last graves in an
outside row, away from the family burying plot.

Lewis Beckwith, who was an extensive landholder on Big Run,
dying about 1815, could hardly have been of this immediate family,
nor is it shown if he were buried in Wood County.  If he was a resident,
his deeds would disclose the fact.