Young Martha Dandridge Custis

Young Martha Dandridge Custis

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

Bacon's Burial in the Pamunkey?

  . . .
As to Bacon's place of burial: When the writer was employed on the survey of the York River railroad in 1854 be heard from the lips of Mr. Cornelius Filbates, of New Kent, the tradition that the illustrious patriot's body was weighted with lead and sunk in the channel opposite the "White House," which is on the right bank. At a time when Bland and Chenoweth and Drummond, and a score of  others were hunted to their death., only a  secret grave could have protected Bacon's remains from insult and mutilation.                                                 F.P.L.
JORDAN'S POINT, PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY Va., September 24. 1891.


-Richmond Dispatch, 27 September 1891


A little investigating has led me to believe the author of this piece was Frederick Peabody Levenworth (1833-1920) who was a surveyor of the York River Railroad in 1854, and in 1891 was living in retirement in Petersburg.


Nat Bacon’s bones They never found,  
Nat Bacon’s grave Is wilder ground:  
Nat Bacon’s tongue Doth sound! Doth sound!. . . 

- "Nat Bacon's Bones" Archibald MacLeish