Tombstone Tuesday – Relph Myers

Relph Myers Tombstone

IN MEMORY OF

RALPH MYERS

THE SON OF SARAH J.

AND WILLIAM H.

MYERS

BORN APRIL 21st 1883

DIED OCT ?? 1888

AGED ? YEAR.

6 MONTH. AND 9 DAYS

GONE…

Cemetery: Protestant Pioneer – Silver Reef, Utah

Yes, another child, I will have to add up the children, I feel like there is quite a few. I found William H. the Butcher and Sarah living in up the 15 Freeway in Beaver, Utah, with their 3 mo old daughter, Daisey. I also found a IGI record of a William J. Myers born in Silver Reef in 1889 and died Jun 02 1968. I guess that is some consolation.

This grave also includes a small footstone, I didn’t see anything written on it.

Relph Myers Tombstone

Wife of George

Augusta Harding Tombstone

IN

MEMORY OF

AUGUSTA

WIFE OF

GEO. L.

HARDING

BORN

SEP ????  1862

TO

?????   ??? ????4

Cemetery: Protestant Pioneer – Silver Reef, Utah

Tucked under the branches of a tree that has grown very close, is the tombstone of Augusta, wife of George. It was very hard to get close enough for good pictures or to read it, even. It looks like the weeds, foxtails, rubbing against the bottom for all these years has erased the text down there. Only the 4 is left (visually) of her death date, if I had to guess, I would go for 1884, I believe the earliest burial in these cemeteries is 1878 and the latest is 1889.

Here are some closer shots:

Augusta Harding TombstoneI did some quick research and found no Augusta Harding in the 1880 census, but I did find George L. Harding, born 1848, a single engineer living in a boarding house in Silver reef. So if 1884 is the correct date, they were newlyweds and we have another sad tale of the rough life on the frontier.

Augusta Harding Tombstone

Murder! – Michael Garbis or Carbis?

MGarbis.jpg

Sacred

to the memory of

Michael. Garbis.

departed this life

October 3, 1880.

Aged

48 yrs. & 9 mos.

Native of Cornwall

England.

Dying is but going

home.

Death thou art, but another birth,

Freeing the spirit of the clogs of Earth.

Erected by his son, Michael.

Cemetery: Protestant Pioneer – Silver Reef, Utah

I found the following quote in the book: Ghost Towns of the West, by Lambert Florin, Copyright 1970, 1971 by Superior Publishing Company and Promontory Press pg 392

Silver Reef experienced the usual murders ex­pected in an unrestricted mining camp (some de­scribed in Boot Hill). One is commemorated by a beautifully carved tombstone in the camp’s ceme­tery, placed on the grave of Michael Garbis by his son, Michael Jr. The father was slain by a discharged employee who was tried in St. George and found guilty, the execution thwarted by a mob that snatched him from the jail and hanged him at the edge of town. The hanging rope was tied to a bush so that the body was left swinging on the tree. Passing the spot the next morning, the town wag was reported to have said, “I have observed that tree growing there for the last 25 years. This is the first time I have ever seen it bearing fruit.”

garbisfar.jpg

I found the family in the 1880 census index at Family Search, listed as Carlis, but all the other records seem to have the name as Carbis, including the 1841 census of Cornwall, England at find my past. But the author of the book above and I see Garbis on the Tombstone.

In 1880 Michael was 48 and a Miner, with his wife Mary Ann Odgers 44, and Michael Jr. 20 a Blacksmith, born in California, as were the other two kids, Minnie 15 and Bertie 12.