Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The McNutt Mystery

A new little part to the Levi James McNutt mystery came to me the other day.
A person named Gardner is a Find A Grave volunteer over in Mississippi.  She found Sarah Frances Hopkins grave stone!
Sarah Frances Hopkins is the daughter if Elisha and Elizabeth Smithwick Hopkins.  She is also the only Sarah Hopkins that was the daughter of Elisha and Elizabeth Hopkins, the Grandparents of Levi James McNutt. This makes it possible that this is the grave of LJ McNutt's mother.

This graveyard is in Guntown, Lee County, Mississippi. It's an old graveyard and apparently abandoned even though it is right in town.  An interesting thing was the good condition of the gravestone.  I said that someone must have put a new stone there since the one placed there in 1874 would have been well worn by now.  I was hoping there might be living relatives still in the area. Gardner wrote back and mentioned that the gravestone was an example of pottery markers.  Apparently these where found in northeastern Mississippi and northwestern Alabama. Pottery markers are glazed and weather well compared to marble markers.
http://hillcountryhogsblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/loyd-style-stoneware-or-pottery-grave.html
I will be writing to Guntown city hall to find out if they know anything about the folks buried in the field across from them...

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