What a beautiful day to be going to a local cemetery to attend the funeral of a loved one. This happened to our family this past week.

The Pine Grove Cemetery has really improved over the past few years.

It is very pretty and well taken care of. This is an old cemetery, which was included in the Pine Grove Furnace Region. With each furnace you will see in the community around it a church, school, store and cemetery. That started back in the 1800s.

In this particular cemetery you will find the first family of Robert Hamilton.

Here are the old broken-down tombstone of his wife and family, who died during an epidemic. After the death of his family, Mr. Hamilton moved to Peebles and married again. He is buried there with his second family.

He was an iron master and part owner and builder of the Hecla (1833), Mt. Vernon (1833) and Pine Grove Furnace (1828).

Many are buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery and the last record kept was by Joe Bryant, who is deceased and had kept the records only in his mind. There are no correct records in writing.

There is a lot of history around this furnace and many people were living in that area.

A little church was in the lower part of the cemetery and after the surrounding property was sold, the church was sold.

It was stripped of its white shingles and was shown to be a building of logs. It was sold to a gentleman near Wheelersburg to be put with his colony of log buildings.

A festival will be held at the Lawrence County Museum soon. Information will be given later.

Also we are honored, this being Community Health Department Week, that we at the society have among our members and workers, the first health department woman commissioners.

Her name is Laura Brown and we are very proud to have her with us. She does much work for the society.

Historical Fact: From the writings of Thomas A. Walton.

When I landed in Rome Township on September 1819, there was but one wagon in the township and it was owned by Mr. Ventraux.

He had a yoke of oxen and wagon and he had the only log-chain in the township. There was a big mast that year and big fire burned all over the county to the water’s edge. We fought two or three days and nights to keep if off our fences. There was neither rain, snow nor ice that winter. Paddy Creek did not run and there was no rise and no ice in the Ohio River that river. The like has not been known since that time.