W. Va. — Nothing is really ended until it is forgotten, said Susan Arnold, regent at the Mount Tabor Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) dedication ceremony. Saturday May 12.
Rebecca Snyder Bromley finally saw the marker standing on the land so loved by her grandmother.
In 1990, Gail Watson Snyder turned 100, and three women from the DAR attended her birthday party. She was particularly interested in local history. She would go past where the church stood at Mount Tabor every time she would go into town. It was falling apart, and she hoped she would be able to save it in some way, but that never happened, Bromley said.
Edgar Shackelford took Bromley to the site, where there is also a cemetery, and showed her the headstones.
“I got to thinking, maybe we could do a marker, something,” she said. “Then, I thought about grandmother and the DAR chapter. I though, well, you know, maybe that’s the group to get with to try to do this and to get recognition for the site.”
The story is that George Snyder came there in the late 1790s. He died about 1804 as far as they knew. They believe he may have been buried in the cemetery — there are at least nine unmarked graves on the site. The theory is he was buried under the church so the Indians wouldn’t know he died. That’s the story, though Bromley said there’s no way to prove if it is true.
Shackelford’s grandfather was David G. Snyder, and that was the story he has heard most of his life, and he remembers when there was still part of the church there.
“When I was a little kid, we would come over here in the summer and you could see part of it laying there, but my granddad told me all about it,” Shackelford said. “It was a fort to start with, then it was a church and he told me there were at least three people buried under the floor of the church — and one of them was a Snyder.”
He said when the grass is mowed, you can still find the headstones in the field. He was happy to see the marker and felt Bromley needed congratulations for all the work she did to make it a reality.
“It’s going to be here for a while. The guy who owns this place will never get rid of it, I don’t think,” he said.
In order to get a marker from the DAR, you have to have letters from two professionals saying the historical information is correct and legitimate. Bromley teamed with Jenny Boulware, assistant professor of history at WVU, and her students to bring the marker to Mount Tabor.
“These projects take hundreds of years,” Boulware said in her remarks at the dedication ceremony.
The students worked with historical archives and Bromley. They developed the content for the historical marker. They spent an entire semester two years ago putting it together.
“We’re not only honoring the community that was here centuries ago, but we’re also honoring those folks that took the initiative to recognize what happened here, and to preserve that future,” she said.
After the ceremony, there was a reception at the Snyder Farmhouse that was built in 1880.
Bromley said she was very happy to see the marker finally being put up. She hopes to have articles published in the newsletter The Monongalia Chronicle from The Monongalia Historical Society now that the marker stands at Mount Tabor.
“We’re hoping to work with Jenny to get a couple of articles in there about this,” she said. “That would be the kind of conclusion of this.”
