Gish Cemetery

 

Locality:                 Roanoke City                        Temporal Period:                  2nd – 4th quarters 19th c., 1st quarter

Realty Map:          7100601                                                                                  20th  c.

USGS Map:           Roanoke                                                Cultural Affiliation:              Euro-American

Grid Locus:            K-9                                          Landform:                              Ridge top

UTM Easting:       598370                                    Elevation:                              1020 feet

UTM Northing:    4128450                                  Aspect:                                  Southwest

 

Site Dimensions:  60 by 75 feet

 

Survey Description: Site consists of a small cemetery with at least 28 interments.  Observed interments include eight marked with formal, inscribed markers, 16 with uninscribed fieldstone markers, and four unmarked graves visible as depressions in the ground surface.  Most of the graves are oriented to the southeast, but some are oriented to the northeast.  Historical plantings include yucca and periwinkle.  Deteriorated remnants of wooden posts suggest a fence once surrounded the cemetery.  Site is overgrown with briars, scrub brush, and saplings.  Many of the grave markers have fallen and are broken.  Mounded earth along the eastern side of the site, immediately adjacent to graves, indicates some previous disturbance to the site.  Some graves may have been covered with the earth.  Mounded earth was probably associated with construction of adjacent residential development.  Site was field inspected, photographed, and headstone inscriptions were transcribed and compared to previous site documentation.  Site size was estimated by pacing the horizontal extent of observed graves.

 

Surveyed By:        T. Klatka & D. Richardson

Survey Date:         10/97

 

Field Notes:           x Yes    No

Photographs:        x Yes     No

 

Reference(s):         Roanoke Valley Historical Society

                                1986        Roanoke County Graveyards Through 1920.  Privately printed, RVHS, Roanoke.

 

Works Progress Administration of Virginia, Historical Inventory, Roanoke County, Virginia, Document #32.

 

Additional Comments: Assigned temporal period based on death dates inscribed on observed grave markers. Observed death dates range from 1837 through 1917.  However, the presence of uninscribed markers may indicate earlier or late use of the site.

 

This cemetery was initially surveyed and documented in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration and recorded as the “Gish Graveyard” in Document #32 of the Historical Inventory of Roanoke County, Virginia. The survey documentation listed inscriptions from the headstones of David Gish, George R. Gish, and Polly Brugh.  However, the death date for George R. Gish was listed as September 13, 1908 and this varies from the death date recorded by the RVHS and the current survey.  The cemetery was considered “in a fair state of preservation.”

 

About 50 years later, the RVHS surveyed the cemetery and documented biographical information derived from eight headstones in the cemetery which predated 1920 (1986: 124-125).  These eight headstones comprise the complete set of inscribed headstones observed at the site.  The following list was compiled during the 1997 survey of the cemetery.  Bold Italics denotes information that varies from the report prepared by the RVHS, and dashes indicate an illegible inscription.


The Gish Cemetery (continued)

 

Marker Inscriptions:

 

In Memory of our                                                In Memory of                                       David Gish, Jr.

Polly Brugh                                                           David Gish, Sr.                                     Born May 3rd, 1800

Died                                                                        Died                                                        Died______ 1879

July 23rd                                                                March 11th, 1849                                  (Headstone is toppled,

1878                                                                        Aged 77 Yrs.                                         broken and illegible;

Age 74                                                                   (Footstone: D.G.Sr.)                             footstone is also broken)

Blessed are the Dead,

Which die in the Lord.

(Footstone: P.G.)

 

Lydia Edington Gish                                            George                                   Anthony W.

Born 1801                                                              Aug. 10th, 1839                    Son of David & Polly Gish

Died 1884                                                               Oct. 14th, 1917                      Died Octr 4th, 1837

(headstone is toppled,                                        Mary Thrasher                     Aged 3 yrs, 2 mos, & 16 days

broken, and illegible;                                           Sept. 13th, 1841                    Younger plants, the sight how

footstone: L.G.)                                                    July 14th 1906                       Pleasant, Covered thick with

At Rest                                   Blossoms stood, But they cause

GISH                                      us grief, at present Frost hath

(Double marker,                    nipped them in the Bud.

Footstones:  G.G. /

 M.A.T.G.)

 

In Memory of

Mary Ella

Daughter of

G.H. & J. Gish

Died Sept. 30 1863

Aged 2 yrs, ___, ____

___________

___________

 

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