Cashion and Moore Family Cemetery
(ca. 1834)
The 19th-century Cashion and Moore Family Cemetery is believed to be a rare surviving family burial ground in Davidson.
Near the intersection of Davidson-Concord and McAuley Roads, Davidson
Thomas Cashion (1758-1834), a native of Chesterfield County, Virginia, moved to Mecklenburg County with his wife Tabitha Traylor, children (they ultimately had eight children), and cousins in 1800 or 1801. Thomas was a member of the Virginia militia during the American Revolutionary War and fought at Portsmouth, Camden, and Gum Springs. According to family lore, Thomas first became familiar with Mecklenburg County’s attractive landscape when he traveled through this area during his Revolutionary War service. He purchased the farm on which the cemetery is now located in 1802.
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A farmer of modest economic means, Thomas Cashion used the involuntary labor of enslaved persons to further his agricultural operations. The Cashion and Moore Family Cemetery, in which he and Tabitha are buried – Thomas was the first family member to be interred in the cemetery, while Tabitha died in 1844 – bears witness to the fact that Cashion did not belong to the planter elite. Although distinctive, the grave markers are much less ornate than those found in family cemeteries associated with larger estates, such as the John Dinkins Family Cemetery in southern Mecklenburg County. Despite its small size, the Cashion burial ground is instructive both as to burial practices and funerary art employed by white settlers of moderate means in the early to mid-19th century. Laid out like most cemeteries of the period, the headstones generally face east toward the rising sun and are arranged in rows running roughly north/south with the burial plots parallel to one another. All the graves have headstones and footstones that are meager in design (generally providing only information about the deceased) and devoid of elaborate carvings. The cemetery is believed to be a rare extant example of a family burial ground in the Davidson vicinity.
There are seven graves in the Cashion and Moore Family Cemetery, four of which belong to members of the Cashion family. In addition to the graves of Thomas and Tabitha, their daughter-in-law Sarah Cashion and granddaughter Sarah L. Cashion are also interred there. Initially intended solely as a family burial ground for the Cashions, the cemetery later was used by Rocky River Baptist Church, as evidenced by the three other graves belonging to members of the Moore family. At least one of the graves is that of a young girl, based on name and age at time of death.