Accotink United Methodist Church Cemetery

Here follows an excerpt from the Fairfax County Genealogical Society website:

ACCOTINK UNITED METHODIST CHURCH CEMETERY
9043 Backlick Road (Route 617)
Fort Belvoir, Virginia USA

Original Information from Volume 5 of the Gravestone Books

Accotink United Methodist Church is located at 9043 Backlick Road (Route 617), one block north of Richmond Highway (Route 1), in the Accotink area of the county. The congregation built the small, white frame church in 1880, and celebrated its centennial in October 1980. An article in the 1 October 1980 Alexandria Gazette entitled, “Country Church Turns 100,” described Accotink as a “tiny town,” just four blocks long, now completely surrounded by Fort Belvoir. The article quoted the members as saying it is “still a personal country church.”

According to the Gazette, the church bell, which can still be seen in the belfry, once called children to the school that stood next door. One of the members remembers her father’s stories of the church which was the “social center” of the once-rural community of Accotink.

Unfortunately, none of the early records have survived. One of the church founders, the Gazette reports, was S. Samuel Mason, who is buried with his wife in the church graveyard.

The cemetery covers part of a slope on the north side of the church. It was surveyed in 1922, 1988, 1997 and 1998. Another survey which is undated, on file in the Virginia Room, Fairfax City Regional Library, seems to indicate surnames associated with unmarked burials. Some graves are marked with fieldstones. Several rusted funeral home markers can be found throughout the cemetery; these can no longer be read. The 1998 surveyor noted a row of six rusted funeral home markers in the far northeast corner of the cemetery, behind the large Stout gravestone, and in line with a Troth gravestone.

The cemetery is well maintained and shows little evidence of the vandalism reported in recent years. Several old cedars stand in the cemetery which is bordered on the east by a public path running through the woods.

The survey begins in the southwest corner of the cemetery with the gravestone nearest the driveway. Surveyors followed a circuitous, but logical route, through the cemetery and then back toward the driveway.

The following grave markers were recorded in 1923, but not found in 1988, 1997, or 1998.

Anita Caldwell Mason
wife of J. P. H. Mason
daughter of Dr. L. Millan 20 Sep 1857 22 Nov 1897
Mark Caldwell Walker 19 Nov 1879 17 Dec 1881
Mary Emily Walker 20 Jun 1881 19 Jun 1884
Annie Laurie Walker 25 Jul 1884 16 Nov 1887
Nannie E. Taylor
aged 11 yr
wife of George Taylor
(note that the age or the relationship is probably incorrect; also 1923 surveyor mixed surnames
Taylor and Tyler)

The undated survey on file in the Virginia Room, Fairfax City Regional Library, makes note of the following burials which were not found during other surveys:

Dove 13 Apr 1928
Cora Tyler 1981
Robert Wayne Goultrey 1957 1957
Elizabeth Shepherd
Josephine Todd

Surnames associated with unmarked burials on the undated survey are Hansbrough, Dove, Deavers, Tyler, Stout, Herder, Peterson, Mason, Hart, and Clair. Many graves on the undated survey are listed as “unknown.”

No Updates from Volume 6 of the Gravestone Books


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Here follows an excerpt from Donald Hakenson's "This Forgotten Land" tour guide:

This small white frame church was built in 1880. The cemetery contains ninety or more headstones and many unmarked burials. The cemetery is clean and well maintained.

The Alexandria Gazette, dated March 22, 1865 stated, "It is said that a portion of Mosby's command visited the neighborhood below Accotink, on Sunday night last, and carried off some horses and stock, etc., belonging to Mr. Ezra Troth, Mr. McAllister, and others." No other information could be found regarding this raid.

UNION SERGEANT JOHN W.S. CAWMAN.
Buried in the Accotink cemetery in Sergeant John Weslie Stuart Cawman who was born in Blackwater, New Jersey on April 4, 1842. John Cawman enlisted in 1862 as a Private in Company B, Twenty-fourth New Jersey Infantry. On August 31, 1864 until June 30, 1865, he was a Sergeant in Captain Spaulding's Company, Thirty-eighth Regiment of New Jersey Volunteers. Sergeant Cawman married Jane E. Pettit circa 1873 and became a resident of Accotink, Virginia. Sergeant Cawman died near Accotink, Virginia on June 22, 1916.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Fall 2007 edition of the "Franconia Legacies" newsletter published by the Franconia Museum:

ACCOTINK … by Marjorie E. Baggett Tharpe
My great-grandparents, John Baggett and Sarah Pettit Baggett, were probably among the first buried in Accotink Cemetery. Grandpap John Baggett was killed by a runaway team of horses in 1884, and Grandmother Sarah died in 1888. They are buried on the very back row. Other church members also have relatives buried in the church cemetery. Our Trustee Chairman, Clayton Dawson, has a grandfather buried there, who was a Civil War veteran. Marjorie Simms also has relatives buried there. Her grandmother lived in Accotink and attended the church, as did Clayton Dawson's family.