My GGGGG Grandmother

My GGGGG grandmother was Rosannah Barbee, wife of James Harward.  I know quite a bit about James.  He was born in Virginia about 1760, moved to North Carolina about 1767 and lived in the same area of what is now Wake County for the rest of his life. James is fairly easy to follow through the records.

Being a woman, Rosannah did not generate as much of a paper trail as her husband James.  Rosannah (1756-bef 1828) was  the daughter of  Christopher Barbee and Margaret Vawter.  Rosannah and James married in Wake County on 8 Apr 1786.  That was about it.

Until now.

I answered a query online about the Harward family and discovered the researcher had this:

This is Rosannah Harward's gravestone that reads: A Memoral of Rosey Harward died Nov 2 1827.

Wow! Until I saw this photograph I did not know when Rosannah died or where her stone was located.

Now Rosannah's story gets very interesting.  This marker is located in a Harward family cemetery outside of Oakboro in  Stanly County, NC.  Stanly County.  NOT Wake County. This was not just across a county line.  Today, it would take about 2.5 hours to drive there from Wake County.  I'm not sure how that translates to travel by horseback, but I do know it would have been a much longer and much harder trip in Rosey's time.

Why was she there? 

In 1827 her husband James was still living in Wake County. He remarried in  in Jan 1828. 

James and Rosannh's son Jacob Myrick Harward left Wake County and migrated to Stanly County. Was Rosey visiting her son? She was 71 years old at the time of her death. Did she take ill while she was there and pass away?  Did she leave James and go with her son and his family when Myrick left Wake County? 

We may never know for sure.  But that's okay.  I wasn't sure I would ever know when or where she died.

Thank you to the Myrick Harward descendant and cousin who shared this with me.