A Little Piece of History
Posted by taneya on March 2, 2008
Very near to where I live right now is an old house with a historic marker out front. Next door is an old cemetery with some beautiful tombstones. I’ve been driving by this house for months, always curious what the marker says and who is in the cemetery. So, yesterday, Kalonji and I finally stopped.
I did not take a picture of the main house, but as we drove around the house, we realized that yes, someone did live there and yes, we were probably trespassing! I felt so bad. But, then I thought - they must get people doing that every now and then… The cemetery next door was in fact the DeMoss family cemetery. I took some pictures just in case it was not on FindAGrave, but to my delight the whole cemetery was there. There are several obelisks, one of which is Abraham DeMoss (1779 - 1849) himself
I noticed that many of the men were masons, and only a few feet from the house is a Mason Lodge that I learned was built in 1855. I’m sure the DeMoss family was involved in it’s founding.
Some Google searching revealed several sites with some information about the family - the Bellevue Harpeth Historical Association has recently restored Abraham’s father’s log cabin house and are working on a publication about the DeMoss family. One tidbit about this family that I am particularly interested in was that I read that Abraham was killed in his dining room just after the Civil War by a former slave. I must learn more about this….
