Tim Day, a member of the Gartrell/McCravey line recently reached out to me about helping him track down some long-lost relatives. Back in 1995, Roger Cagle, father of Bill Cagle, took Tim and others on a drive somewhere near Price Creek. Tim remembered seeing and hearing about a Talona Methodist Cemetery. He and I spent several hours driving down various back roads in Northwestern and North Central Pickens County. We stopped at Price Creek Baptist Cemetery to pay homage to Absolum and Elizabeth Wheeler. We even saw one of the graves of Davey Crockett Wheeler, the infamous lieutenant of the Honest Man’s Friend and Protector group.
Before running out of daylight, I took Tim to see the Wheeler chimney at Wheeler Cabin Road. We parted ways at the County Administration Offices, and I reminded Tim there is a very nice black and white photo of the Wheeler chimney in the lobby.
I’m not a fan of giving up easily. I contacted our county’s tax assessor, reviewed death records, ancestry charts, county maps, census enumeration maps, and wrote Methodist pastors, the Gilmer County Historic society and more. More dead ends.
Then I remembered learning of a cemetery that was newly added in Gilmer County at the findagrave.com website. The cemetery was listed as the Historic Cemetery, but no listed memorials. Old maps revealed there were never roads near by going back as far as 1869.
I set off to check. As I drove up to the cemetery, I saw the wrought iron fencing that partially surrounded it. There are many old trees, plants, and broken rocks among the tombstones. I counted approximately 45 tombstones. In my experience, a greater number of graves than you'll find in a typical family plot.
I could discern the names of about five of the graves: William H. Gordon, John Henry Wheeler, Bob L. Henderson, and Georgia Ann Henderson. The fifth grave was for a two-year-old with the Yates surname.
Checking the Certificates of Death on Robert L. and Georgia Ann Wheeler Henderson revealed two possible names for the cemetery. Talona Methodist Conference Cemetery or Yates Cemetery. They may be both.
Regardless, I was able to reunite the dead to the dead and living through social media and findagrave.com
Robert L. Henderson was buried on July 6th, 1919. I found his grave on July 6th, 2024, exactly 105 years to the day. How fortuitous!
Talona Methodist Cemetery, Gilmer County
The Final Resting Place of Bob Henderson and Georgia Ann Wheeler Henderson