"Family Burying Ground" on former Johns Ranch, Jacks Valley, Douglas County, Nevada Confirmed!

I've been trying to arrange some time to search archives in Nevada to access the local Genoa newspaper for any indication of Abednego Johns and Jane (Jeanette) Vaughan Lewis Johns. The prize would be a descriptive obituary giving their burial place. For some odd reason, I thought to search for an archived copy of the Genoa paper elsewhere and my search turned up the J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. "D'oh!"

And I struck gold.

Genoa Courier, Friday, March 21, 1890

Genoa Courier, Friday, May 30, 1890

"Family Burying Ground in Jacks Valley" and "on the west end of Johns ranch." We are closing in.

This confirms my suspicions and possible inspiration from my last visit that there is a family burial plot on the ranch. I was thinking more easterly, but west up against the mountain does make sense and matches my initial thoughts. It would be a mile or so south of the well-documented Winters Family Cemetery on the current Ascagua Ranch that I visited last October.

Now that they are all securely archived and sourced on FamilySearch.org with enough evidentiary explanation and proudly proclaimed provenance that no one should ever try to delete them, I share them here. (Of course sharing them here gives me assurance that more people in the family have them in case someone has to go back in to FamilySearch to fix what someone else changed or deleted!)

This also gives a solid clue that at least as of 1890 (the year of the burned federal census) Jane and John Lewis's son, John Samuel Lewis, resided in Reno.

Still, the question remains, where are the graves? Do markers still exist? Has no one noticed them? The Washoe Tribe has not responded to my emails or letters. I'm going to have to try and call. I have some other potential contacts to try as well.

"Family Burying Ground" indicates a place already established by 1890. The others deaths in the family that we know of are in 1860 or '61. These are Mary Evans Johns (Jones), Abednego's first wife, who died in September 1860, and Jane's mother, my 4th-Great-Grandmother, Elinor Jenkins Vaughan, who died after the September, 1860 Census and before the January, 1862, Nevada Census, also in Jacks Valley.

As my Cousin Judy and I have agreed since we found out just a few years ago that Jane and her first husband, John Lewis, and son and her mother, Elinor Vaughan, came to Utah with handcarts in 1856, if we find Jane, we will find Elinor.

Well, we're pretty close to finding Jane "on the west end of the Johns ranch."

I think we need to talk to some Washoe archaeologists.

Cholera Cemetery above Tredegar, Wales

Copyright Robin Drayton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

This is one of the bleakest, saddest places on earth up above Tredegar, Wales on Rhymney Hill. The cholera victims were buried up there because, well, cholera. While the story I am writing is not intended to be illustrated, this place makes an appearance.

We don't see much cholera today because of clean and safe drinking water and sewage systems generally through people united in governmental activity. During the Capitalist exploitation of the Industrial Revolution in Wales, there was no economic incentive to provide sanitary or sewers or clean drinking water. It was illegal for the workers to organize. The towns were controlled by the same wealthy men who controlled the pits and furnaces. When cholera struck, the masters left for houses deep in the country. If workers died, more were readily available from the poor of Ireland and elsewhere.

Unbridled Capitalism

Still working on my family history writing project, I said I wouldn't post. But, part of my project is the research, particularly of Tredegar in the 1840s and 50s. I am continually horrified by the abuses of unregulated Capitalism on the working poor in Wales during the Industrial Revolution. We're not just talking hard-working, tough guys, but women and children too.

I have yet to visit Tredegar in the Sirhowy Valley, but I was just one valley over in the Ebbw Vale and I drove by on the Heads of the Valleys Road, AKA the A465. And we visited Merthyr Tydfil two valleys over on the west side and went to church there in the beautiful Stake Center that sits with some irony up above the abandoned Cafarthfa Iron Works.

So, I share with you tonight some horrifyingly beautiful art pieces of what South Wales was like in the Industrial Revolution when the wealth of Britain and its Imperial war power was built on the blood and crushed bones of Welsh men, women, and children.

An Iron Forge at Merthyr Tydfil, Julius Caesar Ibbetson, 1789

A Note to Readers: Writing Project

Jane "Jeanette" Vaughan Lewis Johns
Born: 1827, Hay, Breconshire, Wales; Died: 1890, Jacks Valley, Nevada.
Mormon Handcart Pioneer of 1856

It may seem that I'm in a blog hiatus. There's not much more than I can say about the lunacy of trump in charge. I refuse to follow every foible and only hope and pray that the sleazy huckster does not launch off WWIII and nuke us all.

I am heavily involved in writing. It is far enough along that I can feel confident there will be some kind of finished product. It is a history of my 4th-Great Aunt, Jane "Jeanette" Vaughan Lewis Johns (1827-1890). Her life was fascinating and I have so many pieces of it but not the full story. So . . . I'm taking some poetic license to write in the historical-fiction genre.

I'm modeling after John dos Passos or Aleksandr Soltzenitsyn who wrote historical fiction interspersed with real documents and contemporaneous newspaper articles of the day. I have some of those things for Aunt Jane and family so I'm putting them in and writing stories around them. I also have some themes and I think I can work it into an artistic whole.