Restoration History of Little Flock Baptist Cemetery

Two years ago when I began the research of my family genealogy, I shortly discovered that my paternal grandmother had a long family history in Harrison County. Shortly thereafter, I visited the genealogy section of the library in Corydon and read through the book, "We Veitches, Veatches, Veaches, Veeches, a Historical Treasury of the Descendants of James Veitch, the Sheriffe, Volume1". In it I discovered that Nathan Veatch, my GGGG Grandfather, had been an early Pioneer in Harrison County, and was buried in the Little Flock Baptist Cemetery south of Elizabeth. I alsø discovered that his son, Elijah had founded Elizabeth, Indiana, naming the town after his Mother, Elizabeth Craig Veatch. Imagine my excitement when I also found in an old notebook a description of the cemetery written in the 1940's of a cemetery having more than 100 graves. I thought that I would find it easily, because I assumed that the town of Elizabeth would have honored the burial site of Elijah's father. At once I set out to find the cemetery. I went to Elizabeth and asked all around for the location of the Little Flock Cemetery. No one that I spoke to had ever heard of such a place. I was in despair and very disappointed! As I had limited time that afternoon, I decided to postpone any futher efforts to locate the cemetery until I had more time.

One might ask why I was so determined to find the grave of Nathan Veatch. As a long time student of history, I was intrigued by the story of Nathan, His father James Veatch, Jr. and Nathan's son's Kinzey, Elijah, and Nathan Jr.

Nathan's father, James Veatch JR. fought and died for liberty at the Battle of Camden, SC in 1780. His son Nathan took up the cause of freedom and as a soldier at The Battle of King's Mountain, SC soundly whipped the British Army, sending them from the field in disgrace. But Nathan was not finished with war. He settled in Sevier County, TN and was again called to fight against the Cherokee Indians. After a time he moved to Indiana Territory, arriving in 1811. But again, peace was not to be. Nathan with sons Nathan Jr., Kinzey and Elijah answered the call joining the Militia in Harrison County to fight in the War of 1812. There were four families of note that fought for and pioneered Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois together. They were the Shield's, Kingery's, Onion's, and Saffer's. We find their descendents and family members in all those locations, buried together as they had lived and fought for freedom, side by side.

A few weeks later I contacted my niece, Sandra Beauchemin, Sandra and her husband, Bernard,live south of Corydon off Highway 135, and asked them to help me. Bernard spent a day at the library and the courthouse finding the recorded location and obtaining a map of the townships. Shortly thereafter, Bernard, Sandra, and I went off in search of Little Flock one very hot summer morning. Using a map, we were able to drive to within a short distance from where we believed the cemetery to be located. Leaving the car, we set off along an old cemetery. As we came out on a ridge along an old logging road in the direction we where we expected to find the cemetery. As we came out on a ridge along the road, Bernard spotted a gravestone setting beside the logging road and an old wooden sign with the words Little Flock Cemetery cut into the wood. We attempted to find the dimensions of the cemetery but were prevented from doing so by a wall of trees, bushes, vines, and green briars. As it was summer, the bugs were terrible and he heat oppressive. We discussed our options and decided to wait until fall when frost wouldkill back the leaves allowing us to see the area more clearly.

And so, a few weeks later following the first cold snap, we planned out first clearing visit. Bernard contacted the owner of the property, Bill Miller and obtained his permisson to begin clearing the cemetery. Bill told us that he knew the cemetery was there but that there were only a few graves, less than ten he thought. From old records we believed that there were more but were not sure. On a cool crisp morning in September 1998, we arrieved with our weed eater, chain saw, and hand tools to began the clearing. The leaves were still green but the insects were few and the temperature was reasonable. That morning there was just Bernard, my wife Rene, and myself. We begain by working our way in a circle around the area, clearing as we went, staying just away from the graves that we could find. By late morning we had completed the outline of the cemetery and were amazed to find that we had such a hugh area to clear. We were now faced with a much larger task then we had anticipated. At first we had believed that we could finish the job in a few weekends. Now we were faced with a very long-term project. So, it was decided that we would approach the job in sections starting on the western end and north side. This left the most demanding area for last. By beginning this way we could make fast progress to clear areas that could be used to fall large trees into without the risk of the trees falling onto gravestones. Thus, by the end of the second day we had cleared a working area on two sides and could began the hard work of clearing the remainder. The morning of our second weekend of clearing, Rene was working in the cemter of the cemetery near the western edge when she found the gravestone bearing the name of Nathan Veatch. I was amazed considering that Nathan had passed away in 1829. After taking photos of this and his daugher-in-law, Lucinda's stones, I returned to where I had been working. A few minutes later, Rene called to me that she had found a bronze plaque in front of Nathan's stone. It read "Revolutionary Soldier, Lt Nathan Veatch 1775 1773, Placed by the Hoosier Elm Chapter, DAR". We were ecstatic! Now whad no choice but to clear the entire cemetery. We could not have stopped had we wanted to do so.

Upon close examination of both Nathan's and Lucinda's stones, we found an inscription that indicated the stone had been placed by a monument firm fromRockprot, Indiana in 1873. Now it was clear why the stone was in such good condition. It also explained who was responsible for placing the new stones. For more info on Nathan Veatch visit Veatch History.

As clearing progressed, more and more gravestones became visible. Sadly, most were ordinary pieces of large rock stuck upright in the ground! But, we were on a roll now and made no effort to read or catalog the stones, as clearing was our task for now. By late October, all of the brush and most of the smaller trees had been cleared and we begain the process of racking the trash of a hundred years from the ground. As we begain this task, Bill Miller came by to see how we were doing. After a short visit, Bill left only to return a short while later with his family, and neighbors to help us clear and burn the trash. This made short work of that chore and we were very pleased to have the complete cemetery in view. Now winter was upon us and work was suspended until spring.

In early April 1999, work resumed with a skilled team of volunteers from Owen County, Indiana. Michael Denny, Gary Tucker, and David Dillman arranged to join us for a large tree cutting expediton. In the fall we had left all of the really large trees standing because we were afraid that if we were to just cut them down, we would damage precious garvestones. Michael and Gary had both worked as professonal tree trimmers and were confident they could trim and drop all of the trees without hitting a single stone. There were still eighteen trees standing in the cemetery that were very large, and those had to be removed if we were ever to fully restore the cemetery. Michael begain the task by climbing each tree and attaching long ropes high up in the trees. On some trees, Michael was forced to cut limbs and branches while high in the air in order to make sure no part of a tree would land on a gravestone. We could then place four of us on each rope to control and guide the tree to the selected landing point. This worked so well that by days end every tree was on the ground and not a stone had been touched. We took no pictures of this part of the project for superstitious reasons. However, after all trees were on the gound, we took several pictures of the jumble of trees in the cemetery. From those pictures, it is clear that Micahel, Gary, and David did an amazing job to drop all of those tress and not hit a stone.

As we were in the process of cutting these large trees, Bill Miller arrived with his tractor and the logs were carefully removed to an area outside the cemetery. the next two weekends were taken up with clearing the tops and trash from the trees.

On an early and very rainy morning in late April, Bernard, Rene, and I begain the process of making a detailed map of the cemetery, and of counting the garves in Little Flock. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that there were 171 likely graves that we identified by markers and depressions. Of those we had names for 41. While we continued the on going work of digging out stumps, vines and to level parts of the gound, Sandra Beauchemin spent her time using a water bottle and cleaning those gravestones that were still standing. As she cleared she often tried to read the old fieldstones and to her surprise, one became quite readable. This was the stone of Benjamin Shields, son-in-law of Nathan Veatch and just to the east of Nathan's grave.

As we cleaned sections of the cemetery, we planted grass seed on the cleared areas. This process was very slow but was completed by mid-June. We then began the task of resetting fieldstones but were forced to stop because of the heat and the dry weather of early summer. Work was resumed in September 1999.