OLDEST MARKED GRAVE IN TYRRELL COUNTY

About 20 years ago the Weyerhaeuser Company was logging a section of their land near the Tyrrell/Washington County line. The logging site was several tracts of land located along SR 1115 and SR 1158 east of Creswell. While logging Tract #7 in Tyrrell County, a lone grave was discovered about 200 yards in the woods north of SR 1115 about .1 mile east of the Tyrrell/Washington County line. At the time I was researching cemeteries in Tyrrell County for a book I intended to write, so I visited the grave site. Once in the logging area I found that it was a single, white marble head stone lying flat on the ground near a once brick-lined grave. It appears that the grave was disturbed some time ago for some unknown reason. The inscription on the old stone is still very readable despite its age and having lain on the forest floor for quite sometime. The inscription reads as follows:

• Here lies interred George Trotter
• Who died on the 18th Day of August 1802
• Aged 36 Years

This makes George Trotter born about 1766 and his grave site of 215 years as one of the oldest surviving marked graves in Tyrrell County rivaling the grave of Col. Hezekiah Spruill buried in 1804 in the community of Alligator. The Weyerhaeuser Company left a small area intact surrounding the grave so as to not disturb the area any further and to offer some protection to the site.