I initially wanted to locate this family cemetery to fulfill some requests, I think. I can’t remember. There was limited information online about it, but I found that one of the most recent graves was that of a woman who had lived in a home on the land where the cemetery lies. Her obituary in 2001 said that she had been restoring the home to serve as a bed and breakfast. The B&B’s website was long gone, but through the power of the wayback machine, I found that it had operated from at least 2001 through about 2008. I had the address of the B&B and, one day with my husband and daughter, set out to see if I could find the cemetery.
We were able to get pretty close to where I believed it was, but I didn’t see anything that looked like a cemetery–only fields. It was December, so there wasn’t much growing in the fields. We saw some guys working nearby on a tractor, and my husband–who is much more of a “people person” than I am–asked them if they knew where it was. They were super friendly and helpful, and pointed us to the middle of a field. It was pretty muddy, and cold, but we walked across the field and discovered the small graveyard.
As family cemeteries go, it was actually fairly accessible and sort of maintained, in that some of the brush had been cut at one point not too long ago).
I haven’t done any research about the Carson family, but apparently they were descended from the Hites, a fairly well-known and prominent Frederick County family.
The site for the B&B, Pleasant Green Gardens (named after the home associated with the cemetery), states that “Simon Carson, Jr. married Martha Williams in the fall of 1791 and settled on a farm given to them by Elisha Williams. They named the farm ‘Pleasant Green.’ Their manor house, built in 1780, of gray stone still stands today.”
There are grave markers in the cemetery for Simon Carson Jr., and his wife, Martha. There are markers for a few other members of the Carson family, and some markers with no inscriptions or illegible inscriptions. Simon Carson, Jr.’s son James Harvey was apparently a general in the Confederate Army, but I did not see a stone for him.
I hope that someday, some Carson descendants or others will clear out the brush and clean and repair the stones. There seems to be animal activity that has disturbed the ground, so some additional stones or pieces might be located.