William Thomas Family Cemetery

Cemetery itself has been cleaned twice since the 1990s but has not had any routine maintenance. In those clean ups no repair work or resets were done to markers at those times. There is evidence of heavy sinking, depressions and multiple markers out of their sockets and stuck into the ground. The isolated Jacob Jones plot has a rock wall that is collapsing and needs immediate attention. There is one broken marker for Gertrude Oney which the missing piece has not been located. Other markers are down.

We are in process of resetting sunken and toppled markers using simple hoist techniques and leveling of existing sockets/bases.

Cemetery in process of restoration by Bedford County JROTC, Peaks of Otter Chapter of DAR and History for Liberty. The plot is referenced as containing “8 Generations of Thomas'” this is a substantial number and if true it would obviously indicate the plot is far larger than the rock wall, which was likely erected around the turn of the 20th century, and perhaps even as late as 1920. Further research would be valuable to track the parcel and understand its ownership before the 1790s…did the Caffery family (William Thomas’ wife) own it originally?

Many burials here were identified via robust obituaries. I suspect if papers could be located all major burials could be identified via obits. The Thomas family was clearly a prominent and respected family in Bedford County. In spite of this there are still several identification mysteries in terms of genealogical identification of individuals interred and some confusion that we have been able to clear up in regards to positive IDs.