There are few more interesting graveyards in this part of the country than that at Derry. Within the stone walls are to be found the an- cestors of many of the prominent families in this part of the country. The inscriptions on those limestone slabs that cover the Wilsons, Gal- breaths, Hamiltons, Bertrams, Koans are becom- ing defaced by time, but the interested visitor will find an hour in the burying ground most re- paying. According to the late Colonel Joseph McCar- rell Leeper, of Newburg, New York, the men of Derry were not alone ancestors of the near-great but of the great in Americans history. The blood of old Parson Bertram, whose daughter married James Galbreath, was in President McKinley and James G. Blaine, as in years gone by Patrick McKinley and Ephraim Blaine each married a Galbreath. The contract drawn up January 7, 1771, be- tween the "Comis'nors chusen by Mr. Elder's Congregation in London Dery township and J. Montgomery, mason, James Kogers and James McCluer" to build the wall around the old bury- 135 ing ground is equally interesting, for its specifi- cations "to bild or cans to be bild a suficience stone wall, laid in lime and sand, painted inside and out and as well fraged on the top, as the stone on the Meeting Hous Land will allow, this wall to be bild twenty inches thick, five feet and a half high, with the foundation sunk one foot in the grown with a pilor on each side of the gate two feet squair, from the foundation seven and a half feet high" — and for its English as it is spelled. What about "the good old spellers be- fore the day of phonetics," of whom we con- stantly hear? This wall was to be finished by "Augst nix En- suing for the just price of thirty-nine pounds, good money of Pensl. to be paid when the work is Doen." The workmanship happily was not on a par with the spelling and the old wall still stands, though it was thoroughly repaired, the tombstones cleaned and the ground leveled up in 1842. Like Paxton, the ground has been buried over at least twice. An old chronicler writes that when he knew it the graves and paths were almost entirely covered by flowering thyme. Just why Derry weakened while Paxton throve is hard to say. The emigration of 1763 hit her harder, perhaps. Certainly it was from no lack of courage in the people. Even the women abounded in it : in an account of a Whig wedding at Derry, when William Clangham mar- ried Jennie Roan on June 11, 1778, we find all the young unmarried women at the wedding, forming a Whig association with a vow "never 136 to marry any gentleman until lie had first proved himself a patriot in readily turning out when called to defend his country from slavery, as we do not wish to be mothers of a race of slaves and cowards." Perhaps the lack was in a sense of humor, that saving grace which lifts one over bad places in life. Certainly, judged from some of the epi- taphs on the old slabs in Derry church to-day, the pioneers of Derry "revelled in horrors,'^ were not so cheerful as their neighbors "up the val- ley." If in search for the lugubrious, how is this sen- timent under which lies James Campbell, who died in 1771, at the age of eighty years :

AI-modernized reading of the original text

There are few more interesting graveyards in this part of the country than that at Derry. Within the stone walls are to be found the ancestors of many of the prominent families in this part of the country. The inscriptions on those limestone slabs that cover the Wilsons, Galbreaths, Hamiltons, Bertrams, Koans are becoming defaced by time, but the interested visitor will find an hour in the burying ground most repaying. According to the late Colonel Joseph McCarrell Leeper, of Newburg, New York, the men of Derry were not alone ancestors of the near-great but of the great in Americans history. The blood of old Parson Bertram, whose daughter married James Galbreath, was in President McKinley and James G. Blaine, as in years gone by Patrick McKinley and Ephraim Blaine each married a Galbreath. The contract drawn up January 7, 1771, between the "Comis'nors chusen by Mr. Elder's Congregation in London Dery township and J. Montgomery, mason, James Kogers and James McCluer" to build the wall around the old ing ground is equally interesting, for its specifications "to bild or cans to be bild a suficience stone wall, laid in lime and sand, painted inside and out and as well fraged on the top, as the stone on the Meeting Hous Land will allow, this wall to be bild twenty inches thick, five feet and a half high, with the foundation sunk one foot in the grown with a pilor on each side of the gate two feet squair, from the foundation seven and a half feet high" — and for its English as it is spelled. What about "the good old spellers before the day of phonetics," of whom we constantly hear? This wall was to be finished by "Augst nix Ensuing for the just price of thirty-nine pounds, good money of Pensl. to be paid when the work is Doen." The workmanship happily was not on a par with the spelling and the old wall still stands, though it was thoroughly repaired, the tombstones cleaned and the ground leveled up in 1842. Like Paxton, the ground has been buried over at least twice. An old chronicler writes that when he knew it the graves and paths were almost entirely covered by flowering thyme. Just why Derry weakened while Paxton throve is hard to say. The emigration of 1763 hit her harder, perhaps. Certainly it was from no lack of courage in the people. Even the women abounded in it : in an account of a Whig wedding at Derry, when William Clangham married Jennie Roan on June 11, 1778, we find all the young unmarried women at the wedding, forming a Whig association with a vow "never to marry any gentleman until he had first proved himself a patriot in readily turning out when called to defend his country from slavery, as we do not wish to be mothers of a race of slaves and cowards." Perhaps the lack was in a sense of humor, that saving grace which lifts one over bad places in life. Certainly, judged from some of the epitaphs on the old slabs in Derry church to-day, the pioneers of Derry "revelled in horrors,'^ were not so cheerful as their neighbors "up the valley." If in search for the lugubrious, how is this sentiment under which lies James Campbell, who died in 1771, at the age of eighty years :

Historic Paxton, her days and her ways, 1722-1913