March
11, 2004
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the time of his death.
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Patrick
is my 3rd great grandfather. His father was John McMullan, our original
ancestor that came to the new world from Ireland around 1760.
In
April 2003, I took a long trip to see where my ancestors had lived. I drove to New Mexico
to see where my grandfather had homesteaded and then to an area
outside of Dallas, Texas to see where his father, William Rufus
McMullan, my great grandfather, is buried. Then, by way of Galveston,
Texas, I drove to Decatur, Mississippi to see where my second great
grandfather, Thomas Jefferson McMullan is buried, along with many
other McMullan's. Then I drove to Hartwell, Georgia to see where
John McMullan is buried. There was no sign of where his son, my
third great grandfather, Patrick (Sr) McMullan was buried.
I
arrived home late from a photo trip to the Oregon coast on March
9, 2004. The next day, I had an e-mail from Will Carter, another
McMullan I had met in Hartwell, GA. Here is the e-mail:
Jay,
Just wanted to let you know that I just found Patrick McMullan's
grave site using the map that you sent me from the McMullan cousins
in Mississippi.
I had to wait until all of the hunting seasons were over and for
all of the leaves to fall so that you could see well in the woods.
The grave is located in the general area shown by the hand drawn
map but not as close to Cedar Creek as the map shows. Last Thursday
I got Larry Richardson
who is also related to the McMullans to go with me as he lives
in the area and is very interested in family history as well.
We searched the area for about three hours
and covered about four or five miles on foot before we found it.
As you will see in the attached photos, it is very hard to see
the headstones even if you are within
15 to 20 yards of the site because the stones are just big rocks
and have weathered so that they look just like other rocks in
the area. Patrick's headstone is
marked "P. McM." and the dates appear to be 1772 and
1836. The 1836 is very clear but the 1700 date is difficult to
read and it may be something other than 1772.
I am going back there next week with some stuff to clean off the
marker so that it can be clearly seen.
There are at least four to five other grave sites there and maybe
more. All are marked with large rocks for headstones and foot
stones and I don't know if any of them
are marked with initials or not. As it turns out the grave site
is in a state Wildlife Management Area so it will be no problem
for access to the site and one of my
high school friends owns the adjacent property that you have to
cross to get into the area. He has given us permission to park
on his property and there is a road
that goes in to within about 1/4 mile of the grave site.
We had walked within 20 yards of the graves going in but didn't
see them until we had walked all over the area and were actually
headed back out. I had just said
out loud " Patrick, where in the hell are you? Show yourself!"
and Larry had been laughing at me. About five minutes later, he
said "Well I'll be damned, here they are"
and I thought he was just pulling my leg.
I used my GPS to mark the grid coordinates and when I got home,
I used my Garmin Map Source program to print out a map showing
the precise location. Because of the file size, I will send a
copy of the maps in a separate message.
We would have never found the graves without that hand drawn map
that you sent to me. Amazing how stuff like this happens, sometimes
makes you feel as if you
are somehow guided in finding out family history.
Will Carter
I
hope to make another trip to Georgia to see the grave for myself,
hopefully this summer or fall.
Thanks
to Will Carter for these photographs! To see larger images, click
on the photos.
Longitude
and Latitude Coordinates for Patrick's grave - N34 18.570 W82 51.623
Longitude
and Latitude Coordinates for John's grave - N34 18.915 W82 51.279
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