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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
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