Editor,

On April 1, 1915, James H. Daughtrey and Fannie O. Daughtrey sold their family farm, which was located on the Walters Highway to a Mr. F.E. Everett of Southampton County. Two years later the property was sold once again and purchased by John A. and Dorothy V. Williams. The property is now owned by Mr. John E. Bryant and is the site of the Beaverbrook Trailer Park. Listed in the deed of sale for 1915 is the right of ingress and egress for the Daughtrey Family Burying Ground, 20 x 25 yards in size. Permanent grave markers were never placed and over the course of the years the exact location of the graves has been forgotten.

Back in 1991, I ran an ad in The Suffolk New Herald and The Tidewater News asking for any descendants of James H. and Fannie O. Daughtrey to contact me relative to the property. My interest developed because of the high probability that my great grandfather and grandmother, Frank Washington and Margaret Virginia Daughtrey Turner are buried there. The possibility also exists that my great-great grandfather and grandmother, Stephen and Margaret Polly Robertson Turner might also be buried there.

The only way to accurately determine where the grave shafts lie is to utilize ground penetrating radar to determine land disturbance anomalies where the graves were dug. The next accurate process would be to do a topographic ground scraping to determine the color variations in the dirt where the grave shafts exist. A final less scientific process involves the use of a ground probe for determining the existence of materials buried below the surface.

I am submitting this request for information once again to the Franklin Community in hopes that neighbors, associates and members of the Daughtrey Family and their descendants might have information and or pictures of the property from the early 1900’s or prior that might be of benefit to me in my quest to determine the location of the graves.

It is my intention to seek permission to erect an appropriate memorial on the site of this family cemetery. Any persons having information that may be of benefit to me in completing this project are asked to contact me by phone, email, or U. S. Mail.

 

Sidney A. Rader, DTE Retired

641 Piney Point Road

Virginia Beach, VA 23452-2615

(H) 463-2819 (C) 620-1177

sarader1@cox.net