Restored cemetery again able to rest in peace
By Mary Anderson
Staff Writer, The Courier-Tribune
BISCOE - For the first two hundred years, the ancestors of Peggy Hall
Wise rested undisturbed in the McLeod family cemetery just east of Biscoe
in Montgomery County.
In the past 75 years, the cemetery has been threatened by highway construction
(and defended by Wise's granny with a shotgun), unintentionally neglected
by the family who has scattered over the country, and unknowingly trampled
during the
In the past year, the cemetery has been restored, landscaped and rededicated
to honor the deceased McLeods, which include the first town marshal of Star
and seven Confederate soldiers.
Not many family cemeteries hold more history than the 60-by-100-foot
McLeod plot. The family cemetery began in the late 1700s in the backyard
of the McLeod homeplace. The 1,200 acres were a royal land grant to Wise's
great-great-grandparents when the McLeod family came from Scotland and settled
on Cabin Creek in Montgomery County.
Peggy Hall Wise, a McLeod descendant who divides her time between Montgomery
County and Red Lion, Penn., said she knows the names of 12 family members
buried there in addition to the veterans and the marshal. Graves of earlier
McLeods are there, but the individual plots are not identified in the family
oral history.
Not much is known about Marshal James McLeod either, except that he was
listed as the first law enforcement officer for the Town of Star on the
original town charter dated Feb. 20, 1897. Wise thinks his mother was a
Leach, another prominent family of Scots who settled in eastern Montgomery
County.
Local historian John Callicutt said Star's second marshal, John Mitchell,
a Randolph County native, was sworn in 1910, so McLeod probably died some
time around then.
The land had stayed in the McLeod family until recent years when the
descendants sold it to Gus Shad of Mt. Gilead. Wise said when Shad learned
of the cemetery, he donated that parcel to the Montgomery County Historical
Society.
Peggy Wise recalls that around 1930, when she was about 6 years old,
the N.C. Department of Transportation (DOT) was building N.C. 24/27 between
Biscoe and Carthage. Two of the family graves were moved to Macedonia Presbyterian
Church near Candor and Wise's grandmother, Mary Jane McLeod, was not happy.
"I remember my grandmother sitting at the edge of the cemetery with
a shotgun across her lap, telling the DOT crews they would not further disturb
the graveyard in her yard," Wise said. "And, they didn't."
Later, the family built a new house away from the cemetery site and it
was not kept as pristine as before, Wise said.
"After my father was killed, we all went in different directions
and would visit the cemetery when we came to Montgomery County. We always
said we needed to clean it up, but never did," Wise said. "It
hurt me to see the condition it was in, and I am very happy to have it restored."
Wise's father, John Hall, was killed in a pawn shop robbery in Wadeville
in Montgomery County in 1975.
The latest assault on the cemetery was the construction of a power line
last summer. When Progress Energy officials learned that the cemetery had
been damaged, the company paid for the restoration, the Troy Sons of Confederate
Veterans provided markers and Tony Hutto of Hutto Memorials and Landscaping
carved three large stones and several small stones to permanently identify
the McLeod family cemetery.
John Callicutt was excited to learn that seven Confederate veterans,
all members of the McLeod family, were buried there. Callicutt put together
an impressive dedication ceremony in November in which a Southern Iron Cross
was presented in memory of Norman J. McLeod, First Sgt, Co. K, 34 Reg.,
N.C. Troops, and the veterans were saluted with a three-cannon volley.
The ceremony was conducted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans Sgt. John
A. Lisk Camp in Troy, the Scotch Rifleman Camp and the First N.C. Art. Co.
D., Reilly's Battery Reenactment Group.
The Rev. Clyde Comer Jr. of Ether was the guest speaker. Comer, a chaplain
and a purple heart recipient in Vietnam, is a member American Legion Post
No. 45 in Asheboro.
The other veterans in the family cemetery are Martin J. McLeod; his son,
Alexander McLeod; and his three sons, 1st Sgt. Norman, 2nd Lt. Nevin L.,
and Cpl. Murdock D. McLeod, along with relatives Pvt. George W. and Pvt.
Alex G. McLeod.
Norman, Nevin and Martin McLeod were members of Co. K, 34th Regiment,
Montgomery County, N.C. Troops. The others were members of Co. H, 44th Regiment.
Wise said she is grateful to Callicutt for the research and to Tony Hutto
for the landscaping and monuments.
"I am so pleased to see the cemetery restored and protected. It
couldn't have happened without John and Tony," Wise said.
Copyright 2002, Stephens Media Group
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