Photo Thursday

One of my 'successes' when at the Nebraska State Historical Society Research Room last week was discovering that I could look in available cemetary books and find which cemetary an ancestor is buried in.  Mike's 4th great grandfather Aquilla/Equillar HALL was a mystery because he was not buried in the same cemetary as the 'other' HALL's at Palmyra, Nebraska.  Since we now had the name of the Cemetary, Prosper, we could surely find it.  Seems that the Cemetary is also known as Mound Cemetry, Porter, Richardson County, Nebraska.  The location is about 5 miles east of Humboldt, Nebraska.

The cemetary contains burials that were very old and some that were new.  The bonus was the church standing across the road from the cemetary called Prosper Church.  Long abandonded yet stately, the church where Mike's 4th great-grandfather worshiped our Father God in earnest, was filled with hay, horribly vandilized, but still very beautiful.  More on that in my Tuesday Trivia post.  Why is it when searching your family history that the solving of one puzzle leads to the search of yet another puzzel?



Equillar HALL was buried in the same area with his daughter Marcia who married James Shue.  Before coming to Nebraska from Illinois Equillar married widow THOMPSON (her maiden name was ROBINSON) who came with several children, one of them being Nancy Jane THOMPSON.  Three years later Nancy Jane became the wife of Equillar's son, William Alexandar HALL.

Equillar and widow Thompson had two children.  She died shortly after the second daughter was born.  William and Nancy came to Nebraska in 1864 and Equillar and his two young daughters (Marcia was 18 at the time) followed them in 1866, buying land and living next to the younger HALL family in Richardson County, Nebraska west of Stella. 

It appears that Marcia HALL SHUE cared for the aging Equillar, with her husband James and his father James. At the advanced age of 86 years Equillar went home to be with his Heavenly Father in 1880 and was buried at the Prosper Cemetry across from the church where he spent many a Sunday worshiping his God.

Equillar Hall

b. 1796 in Kentucky d. 11 Mar 1880 in Nebraska

The Stone Reads:

Sacred

to the memory of

Equillar Hall

Who departed this life

Mar 11, 1880

Aged 86 years

He died as he lived, a Christian.

Dear is the spot where Christians sleep

And sweet are the strains that Angels pour

O, Why should we in anguish weep

They are not lost but gone before

Equillar is buried between James Shue and Marcia Shue.  Next to Marcia is James' father James.  Next to the elder James is the grave of what appears to be two children but could be the grave of Equillar's other daughter, Anna, who married the elder James Shue (another case of my mother-in-law is also my sister).  The stone is very old and barely readable.  I wish we would have taken more time to decipher the stone.  Looks like it means another trip.................awe, the life of a family genealogist.