The lost Grave under trash - Finding Rosa McCoy Jackson - Lost lives Episode 7

[Music] [Music] uh hello and welcome to the hill b files we are out in uh the fair viiew Cemetery just outside of Williamson West Virginia and we've been here for several stories before which is actually what brought us here today is matter of fact we have a a very special lost Lives episode um about a year ago Heather and I did a video here in the Fairview Cemetery in Williamson West Virginia it's right here on the Kentucky border and many of the notable uh people are here including devilance Hatfield's brother Elias and his family or right just right down there uh they were players in the Hatfield McCoy field but Heather came across a grave up here when we were looking around that was under some old board some old Lumber so we circled back around and learned a little bit more about her and found that she's buried here with her husband who has no marker but we found on his death certificate that he is definitely here you know in theory uh Rose's whole McCoy family is buried in crumb West Virginia about 40 minutes from here and here she is just alone and kind of lost it seems so we're going to figuratively reunite her with her family and you know we wanted to bring you guys out here and you know make you show you guys what we were doing and we figured today would be today' be a good day to do it it should be you know it's really pretty really beautiful out here today uh had to swap out Vehicles had to bring the Can-Am today haven't needed four-wheel drive yet but I'm sure I will before I leave sure is beautiful out today isn't it the snow's just about to end pretty soon anyway where we're going is the old section right up here now like I said we just happened to run across this one and you know it was obvious that it was kind of out of place this grave was and so once we got to look and we found out who she was and we'll tell you a little bit more about the story but I just wanted to bring you down here and get a video of this grave uh let's see I'll walk up to the end rather than climb the hill I prefer not to to walk on people's Graves if I can avoid it and I can't really see them today okay well believe it or not and all this mess I actually found it it's right here other I knew it was close to the stairs but I couldn't see any I couldn't see either of these these four here all I could see was just a blanket of snow and just kind of started matching them up I went all the way down here look at this up through there digging them out you can see where I was making lines in the snow looking for headstones and out through here I dug out a bunch of them out through that way about uh not too far out to that big one right there looking I knew beyond that I knew it was too far but I finally found her just had to do some had to do some digging walked over here you can see my footprints I walked over here and turned around and I can see just a little tiny bit of uh overhang where the snow was overhanging something and went over there and looked and sure enough there she is Rosa McCoy Jackson March 20th 1889 to December 13th 1950 right here and all the the trash is gone the lumber so that didn't come back I see some old pallets up there but that could be related to a recent burial or something this one here hether asked me to get this one as well because there's no finding grave for this one as well this is George J Jackson August 29th 1879 to October 23rd 1955 so he didn't have a he didn't have a find a grave or a marker so we'll fix that too but anyway I guess it looks like neither rain nor sleep nor dark oh wait a minute that's that's the post office sorry but anyway like I said I just wanted to come out here and uh see if we couldn't find this such a beautiful day for it and get an updated video and get some pictures for the find of grave listing and go ahead and fix this and connect the family back together it's cool that you can do you know that kind of stuff you know that our little YouTube channel you know I know it may be silly I know that I know we're not curing cancer or you know world hunger or anything like that but someday I guarantee you at some point in the future someone will be looking for their family for their grandmother their whatever and sooner or later one of them is going to run up on one of our videos or one of our find the grave listings which we've had a lot of those already some of them we've fulfilled whole cemeteries full of finder grave requests but anyway I guess I'm going to get out of [Music] here [Music] so [Music] just like that with the magic of a little bit of video editing we're in another beautiful place and another time a place where the weather is beautiful and the cold snow is gone for now we are in crumb West Virginia at the McCoy Family Cemetery but this is a cemetery that we've never taken you guys to before uh those of you who follow our little adventures are familiar with the Hatfield McCoy feud in the 1800s um as you can imagine you know there are tons of relatives and descendants from both sides in the area several Hatfield and McCoy cemeteries actually you know exists throughout the area this is one here that most have never seen in real life or on YouTube and most likely probably never will again because of its extremely remote location uh you know y'all know we travel all over West Virginia and Kentucky and even further sometimes because families travel we go where the story takes us and we take you guys along with us for the trip I'm here because as I said before uh we're trying to reconnect Rosa with her family in the only way that we really can and also to document some of our local historic grave sites and guys it's actually that we had a little bit of a surprise here on this one it can be very surprising some times when you do these stories the way they can sometimes lead back to each other doing research on Rosa the lady we're here for today on doing research on who Rosa was I should say we realized that she was connected to another fascinating story that we've been working on but anyway I'll get to that in a minute uh right now I have have about a 12 story tall mountain to climb it don't look that bad from here but I I know it's a 12-story building approximately I've already looked it up on Google Earth so I know it's it's up there you know don't look at bad and it's certainly most certainly not the worst that I've ever done uh did a 2,000 foot finding an old graveyard just a few weeks ago climbed a 2,000t mountain about 30 minutes after climbing a 600t mountain looking for the graveyard and we found it eventually it I had to do a whole lot of had to do a whole lot of mountain goating that day that's for sure but we found the grave site and we found this old graveyard too now like I said we're in crumb West Virginia Crum on a very desolate and very windy single lane road with just I'm going to guess I'm going to say approximately 90 potholes per square inch give or take this little section right here is the best section that I've seen since I since I turned down this road this is the best section road that I've seen right here uh found a couple beautiful old um like old there was a couple train tunnels that I went by you know disused they've been shut down for decades and decades and decades I go back out I'll you know maybe shoot a little bit of video going back out kind of show you guys this place a little bit but for now like I said there's a mountain to climb and if y'all been watching the channel for any period of time whatsoever you knew that Leo was going to have to climb a mountain at some point did you not but I did want to show y'all something a little something extra that we're doing on this particular case since Rosa is separated by miles and miles from her family she's with her husband you know we found that out already we found out that he does indeed have a headstone now and we've got all that stuff updated uh but anyhow we brought something for Rosa let me kind of get out of the light here sorry I'm in my own light a I but we brought a little something uh some of you may remember we did a video a while back on one of our other channels called rocks with a purpose where we were gathering out and I went out gathered rocks that we were going to make these you know little Memorial things for for cases like this and situations where maybe maybe someone you know they're there but they don't have a headstone or you know something something along those lines so we thought that we would make her one and Heather got it done got it finished just in time the paint when I got ready to leave the paint was just barely dry enough to touch so I'm going to have to just to be on the safe side I'll be careful with it going up but I'm going to have to take me a backpack this time cuz I've got some stuff to do I've got a lot of ground to cover when I get there I know for sure of 15 McCoy family members up here and there may be more you know that's that's one of the reasons we're here but uh I guess I guess there's nothing you know here a train coming yeah I was thinking on the way in uh some of you if you've ever been to the ghost town of Thurman Thurman West Virginia uh we've got a video of that we went there hether idea earlier this year the road going in it follows the river and there's a railroad track along the side of the river and the little one lane road goes for miles and miles and miles down there and it crisscrosses back at across the train tracks and all this kind of stuff and this one does the same thing it very much reminds me of coming into Thurman West Virginia the ghost town very much reminds me of it especially you know with the old the old train tunnels and stuff too well I've made it to the top of the hill and not too out of breath so I guess that's not too shabby for an old dude huh uh get it all in one shot you can see the truck way right between those two trees way down there by the road you can barely see a little bit of red and if you look around you notice all that black charred there's been a a forest fire here recently check that out don't know how well y'all can see that how black everything is and partially burned you can see where all the trees got partially burned the ground's really clear the only thing on the ground is just what few pine needles have fell out of these trees here since since the forest fire but it is a beautiful place check this out the the neighbors this why I like West Virginia so much y'all I pulled up the neighbors were Bo some Bluegrass all right about halfway up the hill it switches over to Aussie and it's a what's that one fancy like Applebees I'm not sure if that's rock or modern what I don't know but we we have varied tastes so yeah I I give them credit for that they have varied tastes uh anyway okay and get to work uh I found the graveyard what are we doing here right guys so who was Rosa McCoy Rosa Janette McCoy was born uh March 20th 1889 to John B and Miranda Caroline McCoy and I just found them just a second ago uh she was one of at least five children named IR land London England James and Rosa there are probably more but that's what we have so far one of one of my goals here today is to actually see who really is buried up here and then reconnect all of them back together on you know family trees find a grave all that sort of stuff but it it got even more interesting when we looked up her her dad John McCoy's lineage he's right up here hang on let me get up here see it linked him back to another story that we've been working on a while it involves a very small very remote and very old Cemetery in the woods behind an old McCoy Log Cabin uh it seems that John and uh John's dad and grandparents are buried up there but what's interesting about it is that Rosa's great grandparents both died on the same day just a few hours apart and let me see where right here I came up just a second ago you can see John B McCoy right here this is her dad and Miranda see McCoy right here this is her mother and since Rosa can't be here with the rest of the family we brought her little just a little momento of their daughter a little reme remembrance and placed it here and just in case anybody's wondering curious whatever um I'm not a direct descendant of this set of McCoys but I am a relative you know these are these are distant relatives so you know anyway the story is that John Randolph her great-grandfather and his wife Margaret McCoy died on the very same day and are buried in a common grave on the cemetery across the creek and on the hill behind their Old Log House family lore tells that they had always prayed together and had prayed that they would one day die together as The Story Goes John died that morning and Margaret helped plan the funeral and then she died the same day like I said John and Margaret are buried in a common grave together forever now how cool is that so we will revisit uh that story very soon and hopefully bring that to you guys and document the area as well before the old cemetery is lost to time and nature forever uh Rosa eventually married George Washington uh Jackson which is also cool that we found his headstone in the first part of this video and made them a finda grave together Rosa and George had several children together and she eventually died of kidney failure on December 13th 1850 at 61 years old she and George were both buried at the fair viiew Cemetery which is not super uncommon but it does seem that this family is more or less All In this McCoy Cemetery or the other one that we're going to locate so either way though the plan is to document everything and see who is actually up here okay we're all set up I guess got my junk L over there had to peel my hoodie it's a little bit too warm we're out in a t-shirt today y'all middle of February early February 6th I think and and I'm out in a t-shirt imagine that but uh I set up a little time lapse for you guys hey how y'all doing so you know why not you can kind of see you know kind of give you a little bit of an insight into the background you know what go kind of goes on behind the scenes and believe it or not there's infinitely more that uh I can tell you for absolute sure that being a YouTuber is a 7-Day a week job and you will absolutely love it but if you ain't willing to make the commitment don't touch it I I will warn you about that you have to be really serious to uh you know make a living at [Music] it [Music] put this back up don't know where it came from but that's where it was at so we just put him back there's a couple of the graves we're after in a minute couple of the ones that I came here for you this these here are obviously a little bit newer uh McCoy Shirley McCoy was a teacher and Clarence E was a coal miner and electrician uh Shirley was born February 26th 1933 and passed away October 12th 22 just a couple years ago and Clarence was born March 9th 1926 and passed away in 1988 now here is one of the this is one of the ones that I was looking for today youall know how I am about military car Graves this is Clarence E McCoy Sergeant US Army World War II born March 9th 1926 and passed away March 7th 1988 I bet you he could tell you some stories couldn't he says Paw Paw might by a stone I bet you money Paul paw could tell you stories this is Dennis Lee McCoy born October 28th 1953 it says he's a coal miner and electrician father of Clarence Lee and Dennis Lee Jr look at that look at this headstone how beautiful that is it's a coal mine it's a fairly modern Coal Mine electrical wiring going back into the mine something this man probably saw a whole lot of he was an electrician in the mines a real good chance this is Chester Lee McCoy Papa January 24th 1934 to August 16th 2013 now here's one of the ones we came for here today London Lucy yeah we're getting right into them this is London B McCoy April 18th 1892 to October 27th 1958 [Music] [Music] Lucy B McCoy November 9th 1899 to March 6th 1976 now look at the back of that one that's the back of the one with the coal mine look at that it's a whole Farm scene is that not beautiful Barns and that is beautiful I wonder how long those last when you do those that is really beautiful near a train coming heard chickens a little while ago roosters going at it over the hill here okay this is Dwight David McCoy G Paw I'm assuming great grandpa September 4th 19 1953 to November 23rd 2012 well some of these some are obviously pretty recent there's one of the older irelands this is Ireland McCoy born April Fool's Day April 1st 189 98 and passed away June 9th 1963 and there's a picture of Ireland McCoy look at this one where do you see this picture this is Melinda McCoy says together at last at the bottom but look here at this picture look at them curls look at that Gren I kind of get the feeling that Melinda was probably a fun person to be around don't you I me just based on just off of her picture she looks like somebody you'd want to meet this is Angel Prince oh I see born in 1981 and passed away in 1981 as you can see it's just a a flat basically piece of concrete with some steel inside and you can see where it says baby McCoy babies it doesn't have names it just says m c c o y b a b y s babies h this is infant daughter huh they have the dates backwards but uh it says McCoy May Rose August 21st 1938 to April 10th 1937 uh we've got the dates backward but it's a it's an infant it says infant daughter of Lucy in London H now this one is just a stone with a hollowed out what does that say TR NDA looks like could be Amanda baby Amanda Miranda and John I already showed you those but this is Miranda C McCoy June 6th 1867 to May 19th 1959 and of course Rosa's marker she isn't here she's at fair viiew but in a way in a way her memories here now right between between her parents that was the whole point of the rocks with a purpose wasn't it that was the whole point here we are I like that idea and like I said this is John B McCoy March 22nd 1858 to May 30th 1927 couldn't remember if I actually said their dates or not so I figured I'd just do it again just to be sure okay got a little new information the gentleman there that's just leaving and he'll be on the time lapse I asked him if he wouldn't be on video he he didn't want to he politely declined but uh we did talk for about 20 30 minutes and he gave me a lot of information about the old graveyard here uh apparently this marker here for the two babies is is the same as this one and the dates are that's that one and the 37 is this one so that explains that also he is the guy that just came up is the grandson of John B McCoy so this is this is his family right and he was telling me about this one and that one and this lady right here this Rebecca parsley in she was born in October 30th 1848 and passed away March 9th 1887 and he was telling me that the reason she's here is because apparently the parsley family owned hundreds of Acres through here back in the early 1800s and that's how she wound up here also also look right [Music] here I don't want to mess with it or walk on it or anything you see that cross and there that's Melinda McCoy and Ireland McCoy son is Ash were just scattered on top of his parents' grave this past fall so that's that's what the crosses are that's their son's ashes on top of the graves and the the gpaw was a nickname oh she almost stepped on it there's more ashes right there almost stepped on it careful about that stuff and the gpaw and paaw those were nicknames so you know that was Grandpa and that was peaw so yeah it's kind of strange you know you you come out and you do these and you know it's not the first time you know I've run into that before you know people curious what you're doing you know but want you explain you know what you're doing and you're documenting you know their their family for posterity you know for future Generations and all that sort of stuff it's always the same thing you know they well this is such and such and this is such and such over here and she was you know and he was just telling me stories about the family and stuff like that for example Miranda Miranda C McCoy Rosa's mother right John's John's wife okay she was uh her maiden name was James now we knew that uh Heather and I we we knew that but what we didn't know y'all heard of Jesse James she was Jesse James cousin and there was a story that we did not long ago about you know it wasn't about Jesse James Robin the bank in West Virginia but it was mentioned in our video you know we had mentioned about him Robbin you know the bank in West Virginia anyway when he robbed the bank robbed the bank according to family a family lore here we go again with the family lore but you know hey it's family lore we you know we say that if it's family lore if it's not sure we say that if it's fact we'll say that too but anyway um supposedly according to you know her grandson right her her grandson uh says that uh when Jesse James after he robbed the bank before he headed back to Missouri he HD out at Miranda's house for a solid week I thought that was really interesting and thank you very much Mr McCoy very much appreciate the information um he was a really cool cool dude too guys I asked him twice if he would be on video but that that's very common you know you'll either get a enthusiastic yes or an enthusiastic no one of the two there's it's never in between you know think about it that kind of thing but uh he gave me a lot of really interesting information about the graveyard itself uh like for instance your son um I think he said his name was James but I'm not you know don't quote me on that anyway he said that his his son James said that when he was a little boy that their son James would come up here and bring a push lawnmower up this mountain and maintain this graveyard till he was well up into his seven now guys you can imagine pushing a lawnmower up here now just imagine bringing one up here not just cutting the grass just getting the more up here is going to be a nightmare but that's the way it was done you know West Virginia you know well I guess all across the country you know it was a different time you know just a few short decades ago it was a whole different world but he me mentioned that there were several like right in through here where they found they bought the family chipped in and bought a bunch of these for the old Stones the ones that they knew were the ones that had initials on them they made these little Stones this one says MEC which is the letters that was on the stone but that doesn't mean that we know who MEC was it just says MEC and this one Unknown by that Little Rock unknown unknown uh there's several dips in the ground here you can tell you can tell there are Graves like this one you can see remnants of a field Stone right there and unknown so the family has came up here and has done their very best they've done a good job to document what they know and put something out as a remembrance for the ones they don't know and we are back back where we started earlier out there out that way was the old where I found what I believe to be a civil war grave if not a civil war graveyard and the McCoy one here obviously and the old Fitzpatrick Cemetery out in the middle of the Woods I'm going to call this a good day and Rosa honey it's about all we could do you know we found her we found Rosa in theory all by herself with trash all over her grave and now we've come full circle ain't we she has a little a little reminder a little marker right between her m mom and her [Music] dad it's about the best we can do you know we can't we can't reunite these people for real but we can preserve their memory you know we can find a lot of lost things lot of lost information places people all sorts of things like that you know we can't bring them back but we can bring them back in a way just for a little while and now that I've read all these names and they're on YouTube they'll be on the internet forever unless you know World War III Sun explodes you know unless something unless something unexpected happens all of these folks are now documented for their descendants someday to come looking for them they'll have a a really easy breadcrumb to follow the work is complete now makes me smile just a little bit anyway guys I guess I better get on out of here I've still yet got a long drive you know to get back to the house I've got a pretty good little dve I've got to climb back down a mountain too but anyway we appreciate you guys coming along hope you enjoyed our little our little video who knows maybe someday we'll do a story do a story on you or maybe even you'll do a story on me someday I I don't know but either way we'll do what we can won't we we'll document what we can and we'll keep going and thank you guys for supporting us by the way we couldn't do any of this stuff without you guys you know without y'all in our Corner we couldn't do this so we very much appreciate you know all of our subscribers supporters uh members patreon all this stuff we very much appreciate you guys it makes a big difference you know you're coming out this way you've got three counties to cover you know you got gas money and you know patreon will come through or something like that and you know you're you're good to go for a few more days so that's that's basically how Heather and I do it pretty much pretty much everything every nickel we get our hands on every resource that we get our hands on we try any way to put it back into what we do you know it's a lot of it is historical preservation a lot of it is real you know it's historical characters and things like that and really cool places a lot of it is quite frankly it's you and me you know it's real people who sometimes they did great things sometimes bad things sometimes it's like that saying go sometimes you're born to Greatness and sometimes greatness is thrust upon you you don't know until it happens and we just like to come out and document this stuff and share it with you guys so anyway I guess I need to shut up and get out of here it's getting late on me uh you guys y'all have a really good day thank you for coming along we very much appreciate you and we will see you next time on the hillbilly files Leo out couple the old train trestles there's one right there not trestles tunnels one right there one right here and you can see these used to haul coal in out of here Southern West Virginia and you can see where the old rail line used to run right straight up through there but I just thought I'd stop here I saw a couple of these I was doing a doing some stories down through here I'm in Crome West Virginia CR M and uh you know just thought I'd stop on the way back and says 1906 on the top of this one when it was built and that one over there I can't see a date on it I can barely see that it's even there but I thought I would record some of this stuff as I come back out you know for you guys just kind of show you I mentioned in the video that coming up here kind of reminds me of uh the Thurman West Virginia video the ones of you you know maybe saw that or maybe been there you know how uh going to Thurman the old ghost town of Thurman West Virginia how you go up by the river the road follows the river and the train tracks and the river's just to my right the train tracks over there right there and the road just kind of follows it and just kind of crisscrosses here and there you know crisscrosses the tracks but it's really pretty place man it is way out there like I mentioned in the other videos they have about ballpark we got about 90 potholes per square inch something like that right through here see what I mean good thing I didn't bring the Mustang you wouldn't have like this very much would he it's a big forest fire through here apparently you can see back through that way just whole area is where the mountains just gutted and just check this out this little Crossing look at this out in country now ain't we well I guess I was out in the country when I left the house but we're further in the country now ain't we saw another tunnel as I was coming in there was another one if I remember right you could see it better the area is kind of a mix you know you got old falling in buildings here and there and really nice houses like so right next door it or right down from it o guard rail fancy bad spot there was one coming in I took a wrong turn so we'll be watching for him big pink house big pink house [Music] look at that very big pink house see what I'm saying now about how it's just like a desolate single Lane Road very much reminds me of going into the ghost town of Thurman couple pretty ones there another that tunnel that's the one that almost got me coming in right there okay we're good you kind of need a pretty decent sense of direction you know to kind of to do this stuff kind of have an idea of where you're going which I know some of the area but from actually this point down where web road starts I've never been there before I've been by this spot a thousand times but I've never been down in there till today all right let's get on home thought I'd show y'all some of that on the way back out and we'll see you next time take it [Music] [Music] easy

Channel: The Hillbilly Files - Legends and Locations

Views: 17,743

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Id: ARkMmyUB4SY

Length: 52min 16sec (3136 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 10 2024