A while back, in 2011, I wrote a post telling a part of my family history, detailing how my great-great-great grandfather Neely Tweed killed the sheriff of a nearby county on the day North Carolina voted whether to secede from the Union to join the Confederacy. I shared how I took my new wife and son on a journey to trace his path after the event. I also spoke of how much of that part of my family’s history is located nearby and how I hoped to soon pursue that legacy. That opportunity came to pass just a couple of weekends ago when my brother and I went to a Tweed family reunion.

This was the third time we’d been invited to this event after the coordinator of the reunion had ran across my post. Unfortunately, the first two times we were unable to go. At that, we were late in arriving at this one but we were still able to meet some of our kin, especially one gentleman, Sammy Sams, who came from the direct lineage of Neely. After doing all the complicated computations of once-or-twice removed, we determined we were second or third cousins.

He shared with us all the information he had of Neely’s tale, most of which we were aware of. We did learn that the sheriff, Ransom Merrill, was not killed immediately but died a couple of weeks later from his wounds. A few years later the Merrill family sued the Tweed’s over the death of the sheriff but the case was dismissed, considered to be justifiable self defense, removing a black mark from the family name. And, ironically, over the years we were told that there were interactions between the Tweed and Merrill families, be it marriages or business I didn’t quite understand, but that’s the way it was in small mountain communities which were enclaves of close-knit families and neighbors, bad blood between them included.

After we left the reunion my brother, who has done most of the family research, took me to all the family graves he located during his fact finding. We spent quite some time driving through winding, mountain roads, passing dozens of country churches-this is part of the apt-named bible belt-and graveyards. Being in this part of the world certainly takes one away from the hustle-and-bustle of city life. And all you have to do is look around and see how your forbears existed in times past for much in this area hasn’t changed that much over the years of industrialization and progress. We passed many bucolic fields full of corn, other crops and grazing cows, fields which were once used for the growing of tobacco, a cash crop that has now fallen out of favor.

Our first visit was to the grave of Neely’s wife, Lucinda, who died fifty three years after Neely at the age of 91 while staking out a cow.

My great-great-great grandmother’s grave. Over the years, it’s tilted to the side. And strangely, Neely’s name is misspelled.

Our next stop was at another Tweed cemetery where my great-grandmother, Althea nee Tweed is interred. Also buried there is Rachel Neely, the out-of-wedlock child born to Peggy Neely on the journey from Ireland. On her gravestone is inscribed born at sea in 1792, with no date of death. Rachel eventually married Jimmy Tweed, who was on that voyage and whose grave is beside that of his wife, and the first child they had was given his mother’s surname as his given name, Neely. I got a photo of Jimmy and Rachel’s graves. I also got to see the grave of my great-great grandfather John Tweed. So on this beautiful summer day I saw family resting places going back six generations, from great to four-times great grandparents. I wonder how many others have had such a chance to find the graves of such long-gone ancestors?

Signs are posted at many of these family cemeteries in the mountain backwoods.

There are many such graveyards hidden away in the rolling hills of these mountains.

My great-grandmother, John Tweed’s daughter.

My great-great-great-great grandfather, Jimmy, who was 8-years-old when he made the perilous trip across the Atlantic to America, who later on married Rachel Neely, the child born on that voyage.

My four-times-great granny, who began her toilsome life on the rolling seas.

That did not end my day of discovery, but the rest of the day’s trip concerned the other great-grandparents side of my family, which also came from that same neck of the woods. More on that later for it was an eye-opening experience.

But Lynndee, Yogi and I later took a trip to the town where the incident took place and saw the actual scene of the crime, the house where Neely shot sheriff Merrill. The house where it happened is a historic site listed on the NC Civil War Trails. That just goes to show how much history is in one’s own backyard if only you open your eyes and look, as I spoke of in another post, and my eyes will remain wide open as I continue my journey of searching through the ashes of my past.