The RIDDLE-DOLLAHITE-PALMER-DURHAM Family Cemetery
Francisco, Stokes Co., NC

The land on which Tyre RIDDLE settled in Stokes county, NC was in the area of what is now Francisco, NC, off of Highway 89. Horseshoe Road comes off of Hwy 89 (on both ends of Horseshoe Rd), just outside of Francisco. This is just a couple of miles east of the Surry county line, and a few miles south of the Virginia line. The Tyre Riddle land was quite a spread, in excess of a thousand acres (I'm not sure of the total amount at this point). It went from what is now Horseshoe Rd all the way past Big Creek to what is now Highway 66. The land that was left after Tyre's son, Asa Riddle moved on west, was divided between Tyre's 3 daughters, Ursula (b. 1795), Elizabeth (b. 1797) and Mary (b. 1800). Ursula and Mary never married, so much of their land was sold or willed to their sister Elizabeth Riddle Dollahite, and her children. Thus, the land of Tyre Riddle passed from the Riddle family into the Dollahite family.

William DOLLAHITE was the progenitor of all of the Stokes county Dollahites of that day. His daughter Mary ended up with the main plots of land that had passed down from the Riddles. She married Elias PARMER (or PALMER) in 1856. When Mary Dollahite Palmer died in 1868 or 1869, she was buried in the family cemetery that had been started by the Riddles on this piece of land. I don't know who the earliest persons were to be buried in this cemetery, but it has become obvious to me over the last 2-3 years that this IS the Tyre Riddle Cemetery, and that it passed to the Dollahite family, and became their family cemetery, and then passed to the Palmer family and became their family cemetery. Just as the land passed through these families, so did this cemetery.

Elias Palmer's second wife was Clara "Clary" NUNN, daughter of John and Sceny Phillips Nunn, Sr. One of Elias's and Clary's daughters, Victoria Tex "Vickie" PALMER, married George Washington DURHAM on August 25th, 1898. Although this land never passed into the Durham family, there were several members, mostly children, of the Durham family that were buried in this cemetery. Almost all of the Durhams buried here, are grandchildren of Elias Palmer. However, they are not descendants of the Riddles or Dollahites, since the Durhams descend from Elias's 2nd marriage (to Clary Nunn). There are clearly three sets of families which are buried here, most of them related, but with certain pockets of the families not necessarily related.

When I began working on cleaning up this cemetery, I could only count about 25 or so graves, since the underbrush was so thick, and the surrounding forest was so thick that no sunlight ever penetrated the area anymore. However, at this juncture (May 20, 1997), my last count was up to at least 40 definite graves in this "Cemetery on the hill". I have maintained a diary throughout my endeavors of restoring this cemetery, and have taken various pictures from time to time to capture the before-and-after effect. I will do my best to get these pictures scanned and posted to this site as soon as possible, and I also plan to record some of my diary entries here as well.

Location of Cemetery