Old Vault in Cave City marks single-grave cemetery (photo), p. 1. "All I know is what's out there," said Lisa Adwell of Cave City.
She's referring to the burial vault at the corner of the lot next door to her house at the intersection of First and Owen Streets. Adwell will be the first to say the concrete structure really doesn't look like a burial vault.
When she first moved into the neighborhood, she wandered what it was.
We had lived here for several months before I knew what it was, "she said.
Her first thought was that it was a well, but when she ventured next door she discovered that it was a burial vault and the grave of Mary Ann Landers.
"The very idea that she lived so close to a grave kind of spooked her sister and niece. In fact, Adwell's niece wouldn't spend the night with her
for quite some time because she was too freaked out about it.
Adwell asked friends and relatives about the grave and learned from her mother-in-law that the lot once belonged to a Catholic church.
Alvada Woosely, of Cave City, owns the lot now, but like Adwell, she knows nothing about Landers or the Catholic Church. Landers' grave is the only one on the property that is marked. If there are other graves, their markers have long since disappeared.
Joe and Maria Brent, of Versailles, who are public history specialists hired by the West Kentucky Corporation to document points of interest along U.S. 31-W, discovered the vault and mentioned it in their findings. They, too, were unable to find anything about Landers.
Wayne Hatcher, of Cave City, read an article about the Brent's work in the Glasgow Daily Times and thought the mystery behind Landers' grave was interesting. The epitaph on the grave states that she was born on Sept. 29, 1812 in the town Castlebar in Mayo County, Ireland.
He was so intrigued that he began investigating it. He discovered in the 1870 Barren County Census records that Landers, who was referred to as Annie, was married to William Landers.
She was 53 years old when the census was taken, and he was 47. No children were listed to be living with the couple at that time.
Hatcher telephoned Sandy Gorin of Glasgow, about Lander's grave. Gorin discovered that the couple was not found in the 1860 Barren County census, but she is in the 1880 census. [note - this is an error and not what I told her!]. Landers' husband must have died sometime between 1870 and 1880, because Gorin found her listed as living with someone else. [wrong - William was]. She also noticed that most of Landers' neighbors were about the same age as she, and all had Irish names.
It's kind of intriguing because they all came in at the same time," said Gorin of the Irish community in Cave City.
Information found in a Barren Co cemetery book for the late 1880s list the property at the corner of First and Owen Streets as being the site of a Catholic cemetery. [error - Catholic church.]
Gorin and Hatcher think that an Irish settlement moved to Cave City to help with the construction of the L&N Railroad. Gorin says that many people who moved into the area to work on the railroad were needed to cut timber in Edmonson County for the tresses used on the railroad.
"Most Irish immigrante were of the Roman Catholic faith," said Hatcher, and he thinks those who moved into Cave City had plans to organize a Catholic church there in the late 1800's.
Officials with St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Bowling Green, which would have been in charge of the church organization in Cave City, showed no records of a Mary Ann or Annie Landers ever being a member. The Archdiocese in Louisville shows no record of there ever having been a Catholic church in Cave City. Our Lady of the Caves Catholic Church is located in Horse
Cave, but it wasn't organized until the 1950's.
What happened to the group of immigrants who planned to develop a Catholic church is the real mystery. No one really seems to know, but there is one theory.
Charles Castner, of Louisville and retired presidsent of the L&N Railroad Historical Society, said some Irish immigrants may have worked on the railroad and that information is probably in the historical society's archives.
"There isn't much information that we have other than some Irish may have worked on the line," said Castner. "As to actual people and names of people, I'm afraid that information has long since been lost."
He took thinks the Irish who came to Cave City to work on the railroad were probably of the Catholic faith.
"I think it is fairly well know that a number of Roman Catholic families came to Kentucky," he said, adding that it is possible that some of the Irish immigrants came from Ireland to the Louisville area and developed the community known as Limerick, which is the name of an Irish town. The Limerick village in Louisville is located south of Broadway, and Castner said a number of Catholic families living thee were employed by the L&N Railroad.
"My guess would be that in the 1850's a number of Irish people worked on the railroad and probably a lot of construciton workers went south as they worked on the railroad," he said. The L&N Railroad was opened in 1859.
As for Lander's husband, occupation as a saloon keeper, Castner said he thought it possible that a saloon was operated in Cave City at the time the railroad was being built. "I think after a good day's hard work many of the workers went to the saloon for a drink," he said.
Landers died on Nov. 2, 1879. Her grave is located a few hundred feet from what used to be the L&N Railroad." [another close up photo of the stone.]
Now - when Wayne gets a chance - he will post what he found at the court house and our combined ideas! By the way, neither Wayne nor I knew we were being quoted!
A lady called me that evening who did not give me her name and said that until fairly recently, the area of the grave was a "jungle." She said that as a child she knew of the cemetery and that there were other burials there.
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From Wayne Hatcher:
At Sandi's request, I will share a few thoughts re: the burial vault of a Mary Ann LANDERS buried here in Cave City that is now in a resident's yard on the corner of First and Owen St. I first wrote to this list about a month ago telling you about it. I also sent some of you a scanned article of it. Every since the first article appeared in the Glasgow Daily TImes I was intrigued because no one seemed to know anything about this mystery person. Mary Ann LANDERS was born in 1812 and died in 1879. It was fairly
obvious from words engraved on her vault that she was of the Catholic faith. No one from the Catholic Church had any such records of a church existing here in Cave City and thus no records of a Mary Ann Landers.
It occured to me that I had read somewhere in my family research & Cave City history that there may have been a Catholic Church started here, but it never did develop or get "off the ground". Yesterday, I stopped by our County Clerk's Office and looked around. I found deeds that verified that there was interest at one time for a Catholic Church here in Cave City (I'm glad I didn't dream it up). It appears that in 1883 (which was only 4 yrs. after Annie's death) a couple by the name of Louis & Caroline VIAL of Cave City sold (for $100) to "the Right Rev. William George McCloskey Roman Catholic Bishop of Louisville Jefferson Co. KY" a tract of land on Duke Street and 2nd St. (which joins the present day site of the vault). The original deed carried a clause that if the property was not used for a Roman Catholic Church then it would revert back to the original owners and or
their heirs. I also found a deed in 1915 where the Bishop (Denis O'Donaghue) in Louisville conveyed the propety back to the children of Louis & Caroline VIAL because " the said property has never been used as a Roman Catholic Church and will not be so used." Of interest to a few of our readers would be a few liines from the deed: "is bounded as follows: northeast by L. VIAL, northeast by J. H. POYNTER....from the plat laid off by the Knob City Land Co."
I went by Sandi's yesterday to show her my findings. We looked at the 1870 Barren Co. Census records again and found Louis (age 41) & Caroline (age 37) VIAL were born in France. He operated a Clothing store. Their 4 children were: Mary Magdalena, M. Louis, Clara, & Jno. August VIAL. Listed with his household is a Chris C. POYNTER age 28 Clerk in Store and Mary
ARNETT age 27 domestic servant. Chris could be one of my POYNNTER relatives & was working for Mr. VIAL when the census taker came by. (How about it Gary or Lyn???)
From the 1880 Census we found: William LANDERS (Mary Ann's husband) was still living, age 57. He was listed with the Irish family, Martin & Celia GRIMES and their children: Julia Ann, John, Katie, James & Mary E. and 3 nieces: Mary E. , Emma, & Ida SEABORN. There is William and Bridgett EURILL (70 & 72) born in Ireland and working on the railroad.
There is also Mary SPELLMAN, widow 60, and her children, John, William, Eddie & Julia, from Ireland living next door to Jefferson H. POYNTER. Another person is Michael BRADY (79 a widower) who worked with the railroad and his son, Jas T. BRADY (30) a RR agent.
I also observed from the census records that it appears the Irish settlement living in Cave City may have lived in Penn. before they settled here in Barren Co. KY to engage in business and to work on the railroad.
This story has been interesting to say the least. I was born and raised here and had driven by the property many times where the burial vault is located, but had never noticed it until the article appeared in the paper. I hope I haven't bored you too much with this article. One still wonders if Mary Ann LANDNERS is the only person buried there. Something tells me she is not. But because she had a special burial vault, her burial site has been preserved for a 120 years. I hope somewhere/somehow that a LANDERS family descendant might "run into this story" and find it helpful. Perhaps others will find some of your family mentioned in this story.
Sincerely,
Wayne Hatcher
Cave City, KY |
