Our next stop before a well-earned lunch was the cemetery at County Line Christian Church just below Brooks.

What little I found about this cemetery comes from a August 25, 2015 article in The Citizen newspaper:

The church is considered the second oldest Christian church in Georgia, its founding members among the earliest pioneers in Fayette County. Some of those pioneer founders included James W. Lynch, George Lynch, Isham Moody, Kirkland Leach, and J.W. Westmoreland. It is said the church was organized about 1828 in the shop of a Dr. Westmoreland and met there until 1843 when J. W. Westmoreland gave five acres of land (the present site) upon which to build a church. The first building was built of logs and was destroyed by fire in 1845.  

The church was rebuilt in 1848 and remodeled in 1875. The structure has remained in the same site since that time.

The oldest marked grave here is for John Westmoreland, who lived from 1756 to 1816. He may have been the father of J.W. Westmoreland (mentioned above). I suspect that this marker was added at some later date because it looks too new to be that old.

Find a Grave shows that there are nearly 700 graves here. While I did not find the graves of the founders listed above, I did see their last names on several stones. You can see Moody in the bottom left of the photo below.

Wooden Grave Markers

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that encountering a wooden grave marker is almost unheard of these days. While wooden markers were often used back in the day, they didn’t usually stand the test of time. So when I see one intact, I’m genuinely surprised.

For whatever reason, the two wooden grave markers for George Washington Jefferson Lynch and his wife, Sallie Warner Lynch, have stone markers in front of them. My guess is that family didn’t want their graves to end up being lost to time and eternity so they had new ones made. That’s the kind of decision I admire because it means we get to see something that rarely survives.

Born in 1848, George was the son of George W. Lynch. It’s possible that this George Lynch is the son of the man who helped found the church back in 1843. He married Sallie in 1874. The couple had seven children together.

George died at age 74 on Sept. 14, 1921. Oddly enough, his death certificate lists no cause of death at all. Sallie died almost five years later on Aug. 6, 1926 at age 66.

Buried between them is their unnamed infant grandson, the child of Joe and Clara Lynch. The child died on Dec. 14, 1933.

Anonymous Graves

It’s fortunate that the Lynches knew who was buried beneath those wooden markers. Many times, the identity of the deceased is lost forever. It’s something I see if many cemeteries. Here are a few examples.

I’ve shared photos of shell graves before. Many folks assume shell graves are usually located near the beach, but I’ve seen them hundreds of miles inland. The reasons why people used shells to decorate graves are many, the most common (and logical) reason being that it’s what they had. Simple as that.

In this case, these two were possibly a mother and child since one grave is larger than the other. There is a marker for the larger one, but it’s now impossible to read. It may have never had any inscription.

Then there’s this type of grave, which is fairly common, a circle of stones grouped together. This could be a child’s grave due to the size, but I don’t know for sure. This is not a Southern phenomenon, either. I’ve seen them in Ohio and Oklahoma as well. Again, people were using what they had. Purchasing a marker may have been beyond their means at the time.

Two Brothers Marry Two Sisters

It’s not unusual for two brothers from one family to marry two sisters from another. It happened in my own family more than once. That was the case for South Carolina-born brothers Hosea (1817) and Benjamin Gray, Jr. (1819). The Gray family moved to Coweta County sometime in the 1840s.

Hosea married Sarah Freeman in 1843 and the couple had two children, Nancy (who died in 1854) and Benjamin (who died in 1892). Sarah died in 1855. Hosea then married Susan Elizabeth Kempson in 1856. They would have at least 10 children together.

Benjamin married Susan’s sister, Martha Catherine “Mary” Kempson, in 1862. They had two children, Nancy (1863) and Benjamin Jr. (1865). I’m not sure when Benjamin enlisted in the Confederate Army but he did so. He was attached to the Second Battalion of the Georgia Cavalry, Company C, also known as the “Sidney Johnston Avengers”. By this point, older men like Benjamin (who was 45) and young teens were enlisting in the Confederate Army to help the cause.

“Harvest of Death”

I could find few details about Benjamin’s war record, but I do know he died on Dec. 13, 1864. He either died in Grisworldville, Ga. (in Jones County) or in a military hospital near Macon. The Battle of Griswoldville took place on Nov. 22, 1864, which was the first battle of Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea. I had never heard of it before doing this research about Benjamin.

It was a devastating encounter for the Confederate soldiers, as described in Ryan Quint’s article on the “Emerging Civil War” web site:

As the Union soldiers policed the battlefield, they were horrified at the results. These men were veterans of many of Sherman’s campaigns, and they had seen their fair share of battlegrounds, but Griswoldville was different. One account wrote, “Old grey-haired and weakly looking men and little boys not over fifteen years old, lay dead or writhing in pain.” In front of the 100^th Indiana, Theodore Upson wrote that “It was a terrible sight…We moved a few bodies, and there was a boy with a broken arm and leg—just a boy 14 years old; and beside him, cold in death, lay his Father, two brothers, and an Uncle. It was a harvest of death.”

Benjamin was wounded at Griswoldville (an estimated 500 or so were wounded and 600 captured, with 51 dead). According to his wife’s obituary, he died in a military hospital in Macon but it also lists that he was a captain. So that may not be true. His body was brought back for burial in the CLCC Cemetery. Mary, his wife, gave birth to son Benjamin Jr. a few weeks later on Jan. 9, 1865.

Benjamin Gray Jr. died of typhoid fever in 1892. He is buried at Senioa Cemetery in neighboring Coweta County. Mary died in 1929 at age 93 at the home of her daughter, Nancy Gray Couch Wilkes. Mary is buried with Benjamin Jr. in Senoia Cemetery. Nancy died in 1948 and is buried in Atlanta’s Westview Cemetery.

Benjamin’s brother, Hosea, also served in the Confederacy but returned home alive. I’m not sure what unit he served in. Hosea and Susan’s daughter, Villular, was born in February 1864, just a month after her cousin Benjamin Jr.

According to Ancestry, on Oct. 5, 1866: “Villular was accidentally shot when someone left a gun on the bed. The covers got caught in the trigger and when the baby pulled on the covers, the gun went off and she was killed.”

Villular was originally buried on the property where the Grays lived but was later moved to CLCC Cemetery.

Hosea died on Dec. 14, 1902 at age 85. Wife Susan died on April 4, 1923. They are buried together at CLCC Cemetery.

A Father and Son Killed

When I saw the grave of little Floyd Freeman, I wondered if perhaps he had died of Spanish Flu. He died in 1919, so it’s not an off-the-wall theory. However, when I scanned the local newspaper to find out if that was so, I found a story that broke my heart.

Floyd died a few hours after he and his father, James, were hit by a passenger train while they were in their buggy crossing the tracks. James was killed instantly.

James is buried near Floyd with his wife, Alice Reeves Freeman. She died in 1942 at age 71.

I’ve got more to share from County Line Christian Church Cemetery. I hope you’ll join me for Part II.

Note: Tomorrow marks the 12th anniversary of this blog! WOW! I never imagined I would have enough to write about to fill 12 years but here we are. I hope you’ll stick around for more stories from the stones in 2025 and beyond — Traci

First, my apologies for not writing a post since early October 2024! I’ve never gone that long without doing so but sometimes life gets in the way of your plans. A stress fracture in my left foot certainly threw me off. At any rate, happy New Year!

Second, this post contains stories about Confederate veteran graves. If that is a trigger for you, you may wish to stop reading now.

Mom and I stopped by Brooks City Cemetery on our multi-cemetery “hop” around Fayette County, not knowing what to expect. I knew it contained several Confederate veteran graves. A large sign tells you that the cemetery is maintained by the General McLaws Camp #29 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It also states that 18 Confederate veterans are buried there. Find a Grave lists about 120 memorials for Brooks City Cemetery. That’s about all I know.

Namesake of Brooks

There are four Brooks graves at this cemetery and one of them happens to be the person for whom the town was named. His marker isn’t very grand so I had no idea who he was when I photographed it back in 2019.

I’m not sure where Hillery Brooks was born but he married Nancy Anderson in Oglethorpe County in 1827. They lived in Henry County and started a family. He and Nancy moved to Fayette County in the 1850s, following some of their now married daughters. The town was called Sharon Grove at the time. The Brooks family thrived and Hillery was active in their Baptist church.

In 1871, the Savannah, Griffin, and Alabama Railroad finished construction through Sharon Grove (which had begun before the Civil War). Hillery donated the land for the depot with the only condition being that it be called Brooks Station. Over time, Sharon Grove began to be called Brooks Station and eventually was shortened to Brooks in 1907.

As a side note, the Brooks family is thought to have been the first in town to have a well on their property. Before then, folks carried water from nearby streams.

“The Good Man is Gone From Us”

Hillery Brooks died in 1881 at age 75, after suffering a bout of dropsy. This obituary from the Newnan Herald describes his funeral.

Wife Nancy lived another nine years, dying on July 1, 1890 after a “lingering illness.” I suspect that both Hillery and Nancy’s markers were made at the same time since they are so much alike. I like the motif of the finger-pointing hand emerging from an open Bible.

Hillery and Nancy’s son, John R. Brooks, is also buried here. A Confederate veteran, he served Georgia’s 53rd Infantry, Company C. They were known as the “Fayette Planters”. In June 1864, he was held prisoner in Cold Harbor, Va. but was eventually released. He died on May 26, 1936 at age 90.

A Teenage Soldier

James Madison Bridges has two markers. One that he shared with his wife, Maenette, and his Confederate grave marker beside it.

Born in 1847 in Fayette County to Robert Bridges and Sallie Price Bridges, James had many siblings. He enlisted in the Confederate Army in June 1863 in nearby Griffin, and was assigned to Company E of the Second Regiment of the Georgia Cavalry. They were also known as the “Fayette Dragoons”. He would have been only 16 at the time.

I don’t know much about James’ service in the Civil War. He surrendered with his company in April 1865 in Greensboro, NC. Then he returned to Fayette County and married Mary Antoinette (Maenette) Cobb in April 1869.

The couple farmed next door to James’ parents. By 1880, they had a son and two daughters. According to the 1910 U.S. Census, they had 12 children altogether, with seven of them surviving.

James died of paralysis on February 3, 1896. It’s possible he had a stroke that caused it but I can’t be sure. I could not find any documentation to back up the statement in James’ obituary that he represented Fayette County in the Georgia legislature. But he was clearly loved by his neighbors.

Maenette did not remarry but continued living in Fayette County. She applied for a Confederate widow’s pension in 1910 and it appears that she did receive it. Maenette died on April 12, 1919. Brooks, like the rest of America, was suffering through the Spanish Flu pandemic at the time. She was 73. James and Maenette share this marker.

Confederate Widow

Finally, I want to share the story of another couple, Kenion and Nettie Brooks. But in this case, Kenion went to war and never returned.

Born on May 2, 1829 in Fayette County, Kenion (sometimes spelled Kinion) Abraham Brooks married Parthenia Ann (Nettie) Mitchell in 1851. She was born around 1836, so Nettie was a young bride. The couple would have at least seven children together.

Enlisting in May 1862, Kenion served in Company C of the Georgia 53rd Infantry. This is the same Fayette Planters that John R. Brooks (mentioned above) served in. He saw a great deal of action, fighting in the Battle of Malvern Hill, the Battle of Stone Mountain (Va.), and the Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam).

But it was at the Battle of Salem Church (Chancellorsville, Va.) that would seal Private Banks’ fate. From May 3 to May 4, 1863, the 53rd lost 15 men and 105 were wounded. Kenion Banks was among the wounded and later died at Spotsylvania (Va.) Courthouse on May 7, 1863. He was 34.

I believe that the actual burial site of Kenion Banks is unknown, somewhere in Spotsylvania. His marker at Brooks Cemetery is most likely a cenotaph because of the words “In Memory Of” and was placed at a later date.

Back in Brooks, Nettie was pregnant and caring for their children. She gave birth to Kenyon Bradford Banks on July 16, 1863. They lived with her father, Francis, for a time. She died on July 30, 1885 at age 50.

I think Nettie’s grave marker is one of the loveliest I’ve seen. The motif of the hand clutching a bouquet of flowers with one finger pointing up is not one I see very often. It could mean that God plucked a beautiful flower to take to Heaven. I do believe Nettie’s children loved her very much to have provided such a thoughtful stone for their mother.

Next time, Mom and I will take a walk through Fayette County’s County Line Cemetery.