I am a web designer/developer with Future Wave Designs, working with Thomas Childs, my partner who works in the area of sales and content creation/professional writing.  As a poet, I am co-editor and publisher of Word Salad Poetry Magazine/Word Salad Publications. Jean Arthur Jones serves as co-editor with me.

I was just searching for Whealton Pamlico County on Google.

Whealton Point Road with Bruce Whealton, closeup

It was a cold day in early January 2010 when my friend Ryan and I made a trip to the place where my ancestors on my father’s side of the family had lived.  We headed up the North Carolina Coast, to towns like Mesic, and Aurora.  I had heard about the cemetery at the Bay Creek Christian Church in Mesic, NC and had thought that it would be interesting to visit that place again.  I knew and remembered that many Whealton’s had been buried there, along with Mayos, and Jones and others.  I’ll have to update this post with a full listing a bit later.  Mesic is in Pamlico County and I knew that my ancestors had lived there.

I had heard that a great grandmother of mine had lived in Aurora, so we went up there as well.  Aurora is in Beaufort County.  Unfortunately, it was getting late, so I didn’t have time to look around the area.  I didn’t see anything familiar, or have any idea who had lived in Aurora or where they had lived in Aurora.

I did hear about little communities called Cash Corner and Campbell Creek, also.  My grandmother, when she was alive, my father’s mother, would tell us stories about growing up in this area.  Campbell Creek is along the way to Aurora from Mesic, NC.   I had gone on the web and found that there was a road called Whealton Point Road outside of Campbell Creek.   So, I wanted to see that.  It can be found by going east from Campbell Creek.

Finding Campbell Creek first was no easy task.  We drove past it the first time we came, and had to ask some folks in a convenient store up in Aurora.  We were about 6 miles past Campbell Creek when we stopped.  I should have said that we were on Highway 33.  So, when it comes to a place where the Highway bears right, to get to Campbell Creek we bear left, or go left.  After that we found a small Church with a cemetery.

I had heard about a Whealton Family Cemetery and thought that maybe this was it.  It wasn’t that cemetery, though.  Just a local church cemetery.  Then right near that intersection, you can find Tetterton Road which is SR 1963.  This goes toward the Pamlico River, or the area where the river meets the sound and the ocean;  I cannot tell where the river ends and the ocean/sound begins when I look at maps.  Anyway, SR 1963, Tetterton Road dead ends onto Whealton Point Road.  That’s what the sign says, as you can see in the photo.  Now, on google maps it looks like the road is named Jarvis Landing Road but as the sign says, this is Whealton Point Road.  Maybe both…  The sign also says that it is SR 1969 above and below, using the arrows it says 1901.  It doesn’t go very far at all.

You’ll have to click on the image to get a larger photo and be able to see better.

Whealton Point Road with Bruce Whealton 2

Uncle Demos
Who were you?
Brother of my great-great-Grandfather Stephen.

I found your grave
in the dark -
I think that was yours.

It says you died 55 years ago.

It was rather serendipitous
that I found your grave…

The cemetery on Cemetary Road -
(yep, they spelled the road wrong)
isn’t marked.

There isn’t even a headstone for you,
just a flat to the ground, overgrown marker
etched with your name -
our name.

The sun had gone down,
it was dark,
when I found your grave marker.

I know so little about you,
just a few facts.

I don’t know why I came here.
This doesn’t add anything
to my understanding of my family history
(or my understanding of me)
or my understanding of you.

Maybe a name
carved in stone
imparts truth
and meaning…

I wonder if decades after
my death
someone will remember me
and wonder
who I was
and want to see
the mark I left behind.

The Grave stone for Demos Whealton

(This was in the anthology “Simple Vows” put out by St. Andrews Press)

Self history in quest of
self knowledge brought me
today
to this
church cemetery.

A certain history
made visible to me today.
I saw my last name – Whealton -
etched on so many stones…
markers of my heritage…
written here
and here and on a stone next to this one,
and over there, and there and there and
there…
Why were my ancestors put into the ground,
like plants?

From dust thou art -
it says in the bible,
and to dust one must return…
but there is no such thing as death.

I see my ancestors
immortalized on tombstones
with the marker Whealton – the name I share.
Will I live on as well, through
my writing?  I wonder.

This road I traveled…
this land I’ve seen
- as I sought to discover this place-
seems too quiet – too deserted…
a town of ghosts, but here
my ghosts tell me nothing.
I imagine I’ve found a ghost town.
Up front, within the church that my
great-great grandfather built
I observe
signs -  pictures – of recent visitations.
Names, and faces in picture albums
found inside the doorway…
descendants of those names
on the stones.

What did I come to find?
A place holding clues to my heritage?
or something more,
something I could touch
and see…
a certain hard stone’s proof.
(proof of what?)
Stones that need for nothing,
not sun or food,
nor water
to hold their forms
and their names.
All I found was dust – along
the roads and among the stone markers.