Yesterday at the family cemetery will be one of my favorite memories of the year. If you have never been to Comfort, the community itself is worth the drive. Coming from Raleigh you stay on 70 East until just past Kinston and then turn right on 258 at the Richlands sign. Keep driving for 30 minutes or so until you see the intersection with Hwy 41 and turn left. This takes you straight into Comfort. The scenery changes once you make that turn. Green winter rye and oats in the field, beautiful farmland everywhere. Old houses and family farms that date back to the 1700s still intact. These families have worked hard to preserve their heritage. Most of the people around that area still make a living from farming or working on a farm or make the drive daily to Jacksonville, Trenton, or Kinston. When you pass the school, you pass land that was the original land grant that the first Philyaw received in 1728-1730l Down past the school is a store on the right corner. That same store is the only store in Comfort and has been forever. Turning right here on Richlands road eventually gets you to the graveyard. The old graveyard sits at the crest of a rise shaded by one of three original trees. The old cedar is massive and Spanish moss blows in the breeze from its branches. A large holly tree is just behind it, and another huge tree finally died and tumbled over a couple of years ago. A long gravel path takes you up the hill. A horse fence at the back of the graveyard lets you look out over an open field that has been farmed by countless generations of Philyaws and Wiggins who acquired the property after us. This is known as Royal Oak land, named so back in the 1700s. The old Phiyaw house stood past the graveyeard. It is no more, but the old gates still stand, and a couple of hitching posts and the old drive. Descendants of James Philyaw still live on the property and built a beautiful home . The day in the graveyard passed quickly. We found 15-20 unmarked graves and did not finish. There are more to be found and we know at least one is outside the current boundaries of the graveyard. Finding so many infant graves is both sobering and sad. Its a reminder that most people then could not afford to see doctors and generally by the time a doctor was called in, it was too late for the patient. Many of the women in my family from the 1800s right up into the 1940s died either in childbirth or not long afterwards. And so many small children did not live past the age of 2 or 3. Learning to use dousing rods is so interesting. And in case you doubt their accuracy, a couple of us dug down in tree roots after a hit, and found the base of a broken headstone. where a couple of the gravesites were found, I knew who was buried in those spots and was amazed to see it work. Come early spring, we will load up supplies and head back up to make markers for those we found. One of the cousins Brenda Hardy video taped everything. Dennis Jones, retired principal at the local high school came with another local historian Kay Ogle to help us. Took about 15 minutes to find that we are cousins through our great grandfathers who were brothers on Grandmammys side. He has lots of research to share which will definitively source our family tree so that we can fill in missing blanks. So the DAR may just be in our future yet! More to come, cousins.Oh, and in difference to the reunion in May, when you are driving into Comfort on 41, Gospel Light Church is off to your right and easily seen!
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 22:58:52 +0000
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