Old Waxhaw Cemetery

By Historian Louise Pettus

Miss Zoe White of Fort Mill headed the Kanawha Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1911 when she wrote a history of the "Old Waxhaw" cemetery located north of Lancaster about a mile east of the Catawba river.

She stated that the first group of settlers, numbering about a half dozen, were all Presbyterians . They arrived in May of 1751 and began organizing themselves as a congregation in the same year. During the Revolutionary War, the log church served as a temporary hospital for the wounded of the Buford Massacre and the battle of Hanging Rock.

One summer day Miss White and other members of the Fort Mill D.A.R., along with some friends from Rock Hill, made a "delightful picnic excursion to this interesting spot." They spent the day among the graves taking notes of the inscriptions on the ancient stones. They noted that the earliest graves were marked with "small, dark, uncut stones, sometimes with initial letters of them, but more often with none at all."

Miss White was impressed by the inscriptions but, due to their length, in her account she shares only a few lines. In the years between the 1750s and generally up to the 1850s when the county newspapers began publishing obituaries, the sort of thing that would go into an obituary was "published" on the tombstones themselves.

In 1965, Miss Nancy Crockett, the "Historians of the Waxhaws," compiled all of the words in the wonderful old tombstones. In Miss Crockett's book, "Old Waxhaw Graveyard," her foreword credited many people who had encouraged the project. She also noted that the photographer Isabel Davis had copied many of the stones and J. T. Amos, another Lancaster photographer, had photographed a number about 1900. Miss Crockett had the photographs and obituary lists made by earlier local historians and in the summers of 1961 and 1962 she and Mamie Gettys Davis checked and rechecked the inscriptions and added new ones.

Isaac Donnom bemoaned the lost of two wives. One stone, decorated with two doves, facing, holding olive branches in their mouths: "This monument is erected by an affectionate, though disconsolate, husband Isaac Donnom. . . .departed wife, Sarah Donnom; mother of an only surviving daughter Jean. D. Witherspoon. She bid adieu to time, and its enjoyments, on Sabbath morning the 3rd of March. 1805. In the 40th Year of her Age and 21st of her married state. . . . She was the daughter of Majr Robert and Jean Crawford and sister of [7 siblings are named] . . ." This and more followed on the back of the stone with a long lament.

Next to the Sarah Donnom stone is another erected by Isaac Donnom for his second wife Mary M'Ree Donnom who died March 21, 1809, little more than four years after his first wife. Mary, age 26, was the "daughter of William and Mary Barnett, & sister to William Barnett natives of North Carolina." The stone for the second wife is decorated with two doves, facing, with beaks touching.

Included in the lengthy memorial are the words: "To the Memory of a dear tho departed Wife. By a truly disconsolate Husband. Again called on to discharge the solemn duty of erecting a Monumental stone. Ah death! Relentless Monarch, could not one suffice - thy mandate issued twice, and twice, my flattering hopes, my smiling prospects, were destroy'd, yea twice my comforts all, and all my happiness were slain."

And when Isaac Donnom died? His own stone obituary is much shorter: "In memory of Isaac Donnom, who was born February 1st. A. D. 1764, and died February 27th A. D. 1830. This monument has been erected by his Grand-son Isaac Donnom Witherspoon."

The grandson, Isaac Donnom Witherspoon, 1803-1858, born in the Waxhaws, left S. C. College his junior year to study law with Thomas Williams of Yorkville. He was elected to the SC House of Representatives, 1836-39, the SC Senate, 1840-1855. In 1842 he was elected Lieutenant-Governor but chose to stay in the Senate. His son and two more of the same name became prominent men in South Carolina legal and political circles.