We received a notification about a comment on the very first Worthington Cemetery Blog recently. What a gift to read “I’m just finding out my family has a part in the Worthington family cemetery! It is amazing to have footprints that date back to the 1800s.” We have been looking for living relatives of Archibald Worthington almost from the beginning of the project. These are the people who have a shared history with Archibald and the cemetery. This large extended family are now sharing the blog, research, and knowledge that they are part of Defiance County History.
The Friends of Worthington Cemetery group invited the living relatives to be a part of the group. We can share with the family the genealogy of Archibald that we have found, and they can fill in some of the gaps. This is such an exciting time in this project! They have asked to see the cemetery’s location, and we hope to take them out in the Spring. We also hope to have the completed Ohio Historic Marker finished in the early part of 2025. We plan to have a public ceremony for that placement at the edge of the field.
Another update is Eric Hubbard and Christopher LaMack, the two PhD Candidates at the University of Pennsylvania that have completed GPR surveys of the field, are presenting their work on the Worthington Cemetery Project at the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana on January 10. Their focus is on the collaboration of using GPR and human-remains detection (HRD) dogs on Worthington Cemetery, where there are no above-ground indications of a cemetery. This is a unique collaboration that does not disturb the grounds at all. The overlapping of the two distinct surveys in the same locations are great contributions to the cemetery’s location along with historical research.
Another find by Eric Hubbard is a book titled “Invisible in Plain Sight: Self-Determination Strategies of Free Blacks in the Old Northwest” by Jill Rowe that maps out several communities of in the Northwestern Ohio area that the community in Highland Township may have been an extension of. There are several of the same surnames in Rowe’s book that can be found in Census Records when Archibald was in Highland Township. This is also true of communities in Paulding County.
Coming full circle is the finding that some of the same surnames are still in contact with the living relatives that we have discovered that are now part of the Worthington Project. The footprints from the 1800s are still walking along side each other today.
Sarah…. Great blog post and update on the research that continues and deepens as you and others doing the genealogy work are finding more history. Barbara purchased a copy of Invisible in Plain Site and has been reading about the four NW Ohio Black freedman communities Jill Rowe’s work reports on. We even took a ‘roadtrip” a few weeks ago to visit these communities: Carthagena, Rumley, Wren and the hard-to-find “MIddle Creek” community. Barbara thinks it (Middle Creek) may be the present-day Mandale, OH on St Rt. 66, just 17 miles S. of Worthington Cemetery.
Friends of Worthington Cemetery (FOWC) continues to work with our project partners to bring dignity back to Worthington Cemetery . In late 2024, We have formally requested in writing and an in-person meeting with Ayersville Water and Sewer District (AWSD) Board, owner of the cemetery, that commercial agricultural activity on the cemetery stop. We had a positive response from AWSD Board and hope 2025 may see farming activity cease on the cemetery ground.