Polly Yarrow's grave

      Polly Yarrow (Mary Turner Yarrow) was the wife of Yarrow's son Aquilla and, hence, Yarrow's daughter-in-law.  She was born in 1796 in Montgomery County, Maryland, by my research, and died in 1885.  From Slave Ship to Harvard details the research.  That research also gave the reasons for believing that Polly was the great, great aunt of Robert Turner Ford, who went to Harvard. 

      My conclusions are buttressed by this page from The Blue Hills of Maryland, History Along the Appalachian Trail on South Mountain and the Catoctins by Paula Mary Strain, published by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club in 1993.

     I didn't come across this until after my book was published.  The fact that she was called "Aunt" Polly tends to confirm my conclusion that she was the aunt of Simon Turner, who was Robert Ford's grandfather.  I found similar honorifics in use among the congregation at Mount Moriah Church in Yarrowsburg.  

     I had been told the story about Polly allegedly cutting off her toe because she thought it was a black snake but dismissed that as a racist joke and did not include it in the book.

     I do know where her cabin was.  However, Robert Bowers of Yarrowsburg told me that when he was a boy, someone pointed out several plain stones about a half mile north along Yarrowsburg Road. One was said to be Polly's grave, the other the grave of a son.  We spent several hours whacking down bramble bushes but turned up nothing except terribly scarred legs from the thorns.

     Ms. Strain's book credits her story about Yarrowsburg to E Russell Hicks, Our Washington county heritage,  Hagerstown Board of Education 1974.  I contacted the board of education but was unable to locate the publication. I doubt it had any more on the story especially since it probably came from the same people that I talked to in Yarrowsburg.