Gittings Cemetery, Durham Township, Hancock County, Illinois

This cemetery is located on the west side of a poorly kept up Township gravel road in Section 3 of Durham Township, less than a quarter of a mile from the Henderson County line.  It is 3 miles off to the east of the Dallas Township line.

It is a rectangular plot about an acre in area, longest on the road side.  It is level, with grass and roughly mowed, but the terrain around it is hilly.  There are miniature ravines and scrub woods on the west and across the road on the east.  The entire setting is one of forests and broken land off in the distance.

The fencing on the three back sides is practically new.  Not more than five years old probably posts are cedar, Factory process, with a new look shine still on them, with brand new looking farm field wire.  The front fencing is rusted steel farm field post with a couple of crooked old hedge posts where the gate is, with fairly new looking wire fencing of yard type.  Double gates (half from each end post) of steel construction (about a 12 ft. opening), at the north end of the front, admit the living and dead to this place of life's ending.

There is a handful of monuments in the northeast corner of the grounds and about the same number in the southeast corner.  The entire remainder of the grounds are as unencumbered as a lawn.

This is a quite old burying ground with some interments dating back into the 1840's.  Most are of that now long dead century.  By 1900 burials here had practically ceased and it is not likely there ever will be any more,  but if the sons and daughter of this corner of the county far from the world's big centers ever went to be laid to rest where they spent their lives there is a lot room provided for them here as a heritage handed down to them by their noble forbearers.  The living also number but few here in this community and if all were to come here in death it would take centuries to fill this place, but there may be some buried here who did not amass enough cash assets and their short hard lives among these hills to leave funds for stones to keep their names alive, so they may take  comfort in the thought God knows where they are.

(1968 Hancock county history, page 289)

Gittings Cemetery: it is located in the northeast corner of Section 4.  OVER hundred years ago the Gittings family gave an acre of land for burial grounds.  The father, Austin Gittings, was buried in the corner of a cornfield on the Gittings Mound, and the body was moved and was the first grave in the cemetery, according to Robert Gittings, now 85 years old, who lives in Lomax, Illinois.  There were 16 children in the Gittings family, all born in a log cabin.  There are 14 marked graves in the cemetery, dating from 1859 to 1900

(from a letter from Mrs. Edith Blender, R.F.D. 2, Dallas City, Illinois 62330 of the Durham Township Chapter Committee of the 1968 Hancock county history dated October 31, 1968).

"The original was Gittings renowned, Section 2.  Then some pulled away as Robert Gittings (Lomax) told us and made their Cemetery and just called it Gittings, Section 4 not liking the Catholic idea as this family was divided in religion.  Some people will not accept this and I have had people tell me so, but Robert Gittings told us this, now deceased one year after our history, as he was 85. "

Bradshaw, Malvina- b:   d: November 27, 1856 aged 11 months 1 day  (d/o J and S Bradshaw)
Dickson, Daniel L.- b: May 18, 1817   d: February 17, 1895  (h/o Mary Dickson)
Dickson, Lucinda- b:1835   d: 1916  (w/o Daniel L Dickson)
Dickson, Mary- b: November 20, 1828   d: June 15, 1866 aged 37 years 6 months 25 days (w/o Daniel L Dickson)
Gittings, Nellie- b: April 20, 1875   d: August 21, 1875  (d/o A and E. Gittings)
Jackson, George W.- b: unreadable  (s/o B and B Jackson)
Noland, Beckwith- b:   de: April 184? the rest is unreadable  (s/o T.L. and N.D. Noland)
Noland, Margaret- b: May 3, 1814   d: October 15, 1900  (w/o William Noland)
Noland, Nancy D.- b:   d: September 23, 1899 aged 78 years 1 months 28 days
Noland, Randolph- b:   d: March 30, 1849  Aged for years 3 months 5 days  (s/o T.L. and N.D. Noland)
Noland, Thomas L.- b:   d: May 16, 1881  aged 40 years 6 months 10 days  (h/o Nancy D Noland)
Noland, William- b: September 8, 1815   d:  June 1, 1864 48 years 8 months 23 days (h/o Margaret Noland)
Peck, Noland P. - b:   d: February 12, 1881 aged 12 days  (s/o J V And R Peck)
Pounds, Joseph- b:   d: January 1855 aged 3 years 9 months
Webb, Augusta E.- b:   d: March 30, 1882  aged 13 years 10 months 8 days
Wright, Man- b: April 4, 1807   d: no date
Wright, Mathilda F.- b:   d: November 20, 1853  Aged 19 years 6 months 29 days  (d/o M. C. and F M Wright)
Wright, Nathan- b: April 9, 1801   d: April 25, 1876