Now it's really not fair to wonder about Lura's burial place without first discovering a bit about her life.
This life started nearly a thousand miles east of St. Paul, Minnesota in a tiny community called Lymansville, in Potter County, Pennsylvania. Today Lymansville is simply a crossroads of Pennsylvania Route 6 (a.k.a. the Grand Army of the Republic Highway) and Route 872 (a.k.a. Hollow Road)1, on the eastern border of Coudersport Borough. Coudersport itself was only a village at the time, at another crossroads one mile west of Lymansville.2
Here in Lymansville Lura Ann JACKSON was born on 11 January 1826 to Joshua JACKSON and his second wife, Elsie ROUNDS, the seventh of their eight known children.3 And it was probably here--or in Coudersport--that she married Nelson H. PECK around 1847. Their only child, Viola Gertrude PECK, was born 14 April 1848 in Coudersport.4 She became my 3rd-great-grandmother.
We don't know much about Nelson. We do know he was a carpenter and a joiner and that he paid his taxes.5 There are a number of Peck families that lived in the area, but I have no idea how he connected to them. Nelson died a day after Viola's first birthday, on 15 April 1849.6 I'm not even sure where or how he died and I definitely don't know where he was buried. I can only guess at Lymansville or Coudersport for both his death and burial.
But these posts really aren't about Nelson. We'll have to visit his story another time. Our focus is on Lura and where she might be buried.
What's a widow with a year-old baby to do in 1849? She moved in with her sister, Harriet, her brother-in-law, Eli REES, Jr. (himself a carpenter, as well as a farmer), and their four young children in Eulalia Township. And that's where we find them when the 1850 U.S. Federal Census was taken; the first time either Lura or Viola are named on a census.7
Lura probably felt like her life came to an end when Nelson died. But it didn't...not for another 45 years. In fact, her life was about to get very interesting.
To be continued....
1 PA HomeTownLocator, database (http://pennsylvania.hometownlocator.com : accessed 10 January 2015), results for Lymansville search.↩
2 Google Maps, database (https://www.google.com/maps/), results for Coudersport, Pennsylvania search.↩
3 Kay Brownell Reed, Potter County [Pennsylvania] Historical Society Genealogist, pottercohist@adelphia.net, to Miriam Robbins Midkiff, e-mail, 8 December 2004, "PECK/JACKSON - Potter Co., PA," info from society vertical files on Joshua Jackson.↩
4 “Obituary of Mrs. Charles Robbins,” Grand Rapids [Michigan] Herald, 13 March 1918, p. 10. "..."who was born at Cowdersport [sic], Potter county, Pa., on April 14, 1848...."↩
5 Early History of Coudersport - Pioneer Families of Coudersport (Coudersport, Pennsylvania : Potter County Historical Society, 1949), 11.↩
6 Potter County (Pennsylvania) Historical Society, newspaper files (typed transcriptions); Coudersport, Pennsylvania. Entry for Nelson H. Peck.↩
7 Pennsylvania. Potter County. 1850 U.S. census, population schedule. Digital images. Ancestry.com. http://www.ancestry.com : 2014.↩
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