Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
I found an interesting article written years ago ( 1982) by J. Morgan Daniel for Florida Magazine about the death and burial of young Johnny Crump of Swainsboro, Georgia; a Confederate soldier who served in 16 Batt, Georgia Cavalry.
Johnny Crump was wounded in the battle at Petersburg between General Fitzhugh Lee and General Ulysses S. Grant. He was sent home and on the trip home to Swainsboro, Georgia came down with typhoid fever. He only lived a short time after arriving home.
He suffered from claustrophobia and before he died he made his father promise not to bury him underground. After his death his father hired a stonemason from Savannah to hew a crypt from a huge stone that lay close to their house. Johnny Crump died before the stone was finished and his father, determined to keep his promise not to bury his son underground, placed the body in a hollow tree and sealed it with pine tar. The seal did not work, so the senior Crump hired guards around-the-clock to protect his son's body from predators.
After the vault was finished it required 38 men to move it to the nearby family plot. It was set on huge flat stones so that it would never sink into the earth, the body placed in the new tomb and the lid sealed.
When General Sherman's Army came through the area on his "march to the sea", the southern wing of his army passed through the Crump plantation, burning houses, fields,and fences, taking livestock and generally destroying the plantation but the tomb of young Johnny Crump was not disturbed.
Many years later vandals broke off one corner of the tomb and one could see the skeletal remains of Johnny Crump wrapped in its shroud. The damage was eventually repaired.
In 1982 when this article was written the author described the plot as "overgrown with brush. The fire-blackened chimneys stand their silent watch as the towering pines sigh in the wind overhead. At night he is serenaded by the lonely call of the whip-o-will and the inquiring cry of the owl...perhaps a tribute to a young man who proved many times in battle that although he was not afraid to die, he did have a morbid fear of being buried.".
This is not a story about one of my ancestors, but it easily could be for anyone of us whose ancestors lived during the time of that terrible war.
The John Crump family of Swainsboro, Emanuel County, Georgia in 1860 U. S. Census (28 June 1860. Swaynsboro (sic), Georgia, p. 899 A:
John C. Crump 55, farmer, b. GA
Sarah 50
Pleasant T. 25
Ezekiel 20
John W (M?) 14
Lucinda 17
Mosuseyann(?) 11
Virginia 8
Mary Lewis 81
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:No followups yet |
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/ga/emanuel/messages/197.html | ||
 |
Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|