The Family of Zachariah Dutton (b. ca. 1750 Charles Co., Maryland; d. 1829 Granville Co., N.C.)
Trip Report to the Zachariah Dutton Discussion Group: Friendship Cemetery
By Marvin “Woody” Woodworth
December 27, 1999
[Originally published at his website, and mirrored here with his permission]
On Dec 27th, 1999, Betty (maiden name Dutton) and her husband Woody dropped by Decatur, AL, to visit Joseph Richardson, and to receive a tour of the cemetery containing his and her Dutton ancestors. Betty and Woody were on their way back to the central US from a family Christmas gathering in Orlando, FL.
We were guided by Joseph to the Friendship Church cemetery near Danville, south of Decatur, after we met at a Waffle House in Decatur and talked for a bit.
We had stayed the previous night in a Days Inn described as “the historic downtown area”. Although a nice hotel, we realized too late that “historic” was a euphemism for “wrong side of the tracks”. However, the hotel was near the beautiful historic homes beautifully decorated with Christmas lights. We should have stayed in the other Days Inn 4 miles south.
The Tour
Joseph Richardson, our leader, providing the tour for Betty. Betty is looking at the grave sites of her gggparents. Friendship Church is in the background.Obviously, the original stones were replaced by these.Betty contemplating seeing the grave sites of her gggparents and other ancestors for the first time.Always looking for rocks, Betty is wondering if she can take this one home.Recall seeing those huge buildings fall? She took too many rocks and bricks from them.
Our Dutton Ancestors seem to be the dominant occupants of the cemetery.Rev. Dan M. Dutton (stone shown here) was Joseph’s great-grandfatther.We had difficulty taking pictures of the markers due to their age. Joseph reached into his sack for chalk to add contrast to the inscriptions.Betty is also her own cousin, thanks to Stephen Penn marrying his cousin Thomas’s daughter.The chalk made a drastic difference in legibility, and in ability to take a good picture.The following is a wide angle shot from the southeast corner of the cemetery. The left side looks west by southwest, and the right side looks north. My digital camera and its software can do a neat trick of taking two or more pictures and blending them together in a single wide angle picture.More of Betty’s ancestor line.When Frances died, Stephen Penn went back and married Frances’s sister.
After viewing Friendship cemetery, Joseph took us by this now unoccupied home. This was the home of Joseph’s great-grandfather Rev. Dan M. Dutton, his gg-grandfather James Zacahary Dutton, and his ggg-grand father William Dutton.Same place, another view.On the way back to town, Joseph said this was one of his favorite views of the area. So we jumped out and took a picture.“As the sun pulls away from the shore, and the boat sinks slowly in the west …” (from a 1940s Spike Jones record.) Anyway, that is the end of the tour. We are very appreciative of Joseph’s tour, his hospitality, and his knowledge. Picture taken in Key West, FL, during Christmas, 1999. This is the furthest point south in the continental US.
