Cathy Cranford's Genealogy Site ~ Homesite Graves of Abraham COCHRAN & Tamar BRUTON

Homesite Graves Of Abraham COCHRAN & Tamar BRUTON

This work was done by Mr. Frank Broderick and donated to me for use on this website. Please email him at [email protected] for permission before using in any manner. I am sure that he would not mind but it is always nice to ask before taking and please make sure to give him credit where credit is due. He has done a lot of work in restoring and maintaining many gravesites and to him we all owe many thanks. Thank you, Mr. Broderick for passing this on and for taking care of those who have gone before us. God willing, I will try to keep up the good work that you have started and if I should go, I pray that someone will step in my place and continue the effort for all our family lines. Below is Mr. Broderick's words.

This is the most difficult of all to find.  In 1995 the land belonged to the U.S. Forest Service.  The property lies at the west end of the lake on Big Creek about one mile north of Old Morganton Road where Big Creek intersects Big Branch.  I suggest that anyone interested should visit the USFS which is about one or two miles east of Troy (Montgomery Co, NC) on Hwy. 24/27 to Biscoe, and ask for directions to the site.  Hopefully they have built a new road.  Trying to reach the site from the south side of the lake is not possible except on foot and by wading the stream below the dam.

Otherwise, go out the Troy-Candor Road, County Road 1554, about 6.5 miles to a hard-topped road on the right.  Turn here and go about one mile to the home of Ellis and Marion GREEN.  Mr. Gren as a Child, helped put out the fire that burned the Abraham COCHRAN house in the 1930's.  From the GREEN residence you must go about 1.5 miles down thru the woods. Mr. Green took me there on his tractor but the USFS may have a better road now --- hence my suggestion above.  All that remains of the house if part of a stone chimney.  From that chimney you will see a small cemetery nearby but this is from who came later.  The graves of Abraham and Tamer are in an island of hardwood trees visible from there.  The following graves are there:

Abraham COCHRAN

B. 24 May 1757  D. 8 Oct. 1818

Tamer BRUTON COCHRAN

B. before 1767  D. 1842

Abraham POER

B. 24 Nov. 1805  D. 12 Aug. 1818

Polyan POER

B. 1812 D. 1819

Abraham and Polyan POER were the children of Mary COCHRAN, daughter of Abraham and Tamer.

In 1995 I placed new granite headstones at the graves of Abraham and Tamer because the old ones had almost weathered away.

The topographic coordinates are:

Homesite  39  05  35  X  6  07  07

Graves   39  05  38  X  6  06  55

Millsite  39  04  50  X  6  07  20

According to Mr. Green, the mill was a turbine-type.  He said that the original dam built by Abraham was destroyed by vandals years ago and rebuilt but also that, in 1995 there was talk about the government destroying the present dam and thus the lake.  The lake is very beautiful, perhaps about 50 acres, but surrounding it all the timber was cut and replanted in pine in the 1980's.  It is beyond all my imagination that one man could have built all this with the limited tools and materials which existed.  For instance, in my own fascination with turbine-type mills for grinding corn, the mail shaft was a vertical timber approximately six inches square and perhaps twenty feet long which was turned by the force of water.  That implies that the shaft had to rest on a bearing---but bearings had not been invented yet!  So, the end of the timber was hollowed out and a hard pine knot used as a bearing.  The resin in the knot served as a lubricant and when it was worn out the replacement was relatively simple.  These people were not trained engineers but they were driven by necessity and they succeeded so beautifully in building a better life for their families.  We owe them so much.

To contact Cathy, send email to [email protected]

© Copyright 2000, 2001, 2005 by Franklin C. Broderick & Cathy Cranford.   All Rights Reserved.

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