Click photo above for larger picture of the stone of Rev. Andrew Briggs Hester (04/21/1830-04/21/1870).

"Sorry.  I must have moved the camera just as I snapped the shutter.  This photo is a bit blurred, but shows one end of the cemetery."

This cemetery is located in Grant 117, behind "the Project" in Charlestown, behind 318 Hampton Court in Charlestown. Jeanne Burke reports that, in 1998, parts of the stone wall are still standing, but some stones are scattered, broken or knocked down.

The current property owners have expressed an interest in restoring the site and we are investigating how we can assist them.
 
 

The photo on the right is half of the stone that reads, "Sons of George K. Hester"; the other half is missing.  The dates are Dec. 16, 1820 - Sept. 25, 1823 for the above.

Jeanne offers the following index of the burials known to be at Hester-Rowland Cemetery:

.            .                                    .           .

CRAWFORD     Eleanor Samuels, 2nd wife of

             Nathaniel                            12/03/1833  05/28/1894

CRAWFORD     Nathaniel                            03/23/1817  08/22/1900

CRAWFORD     Zerilda D., 1st wife of Nathaniel    09/23/1816  01/24/1882

NOTE: Zerilda ROWLAND married Nathaniel CRAWFORD on October 6, 1840, per the index of Clark County marriages for 1790-1850.

HESTER       Andrew Briggs, Rev.                  04/21/1830  04/21/1870

HESTER       George K., Rev., born in Scotland,   12/12/1789  09/09/1878

             died near Charlestown, Indiana

HESTER       George Knight, Rev.  "He was 56      09/26/1794  09/02/1874

             years a minister of the Gospel in

             the M. E. Church.  His last words

             were, 'I am a sinner saved by

             grace divine.'"

HESTER       Sons of George K. (this stone is     12/16/1820  09/25/1823

             for two children of Rev. G. Hester,

             but the other half is missing, as

             it says "sons of Geo. K.")  The

             dates are Dec. 16, 1820 - Sept.

             25, 1823 for the above.

HESTER       Maria Stevenson, consort of          03/12/1829  09/24/1882

             Melville C. Hester

Baird's History of Clark County (1909) advises that Clark County Common Pleas Circuit Court Judge Melville C. Hester was the ". . . brother of several distinguished Methodist preachers, formerly of Southern Indiana. About 1881, Mr Hester left Charlestown, where he was then living, and went to California, where he now [1909] resides."

HESTER       Mathias, died in his 58th year       circa 1765  11/24/1823

               (See bio below)

ROWLAND      Marietta, wife of B. R. Rowland      12/11/1830  05/08/1849

RO(WLAND?)   Martha R.                            02/12/1814  09/06/1823

ROW(LAND?)   Minerva                              10/27/1821  01/31/1822

ROWLAND      William ("Our Father")               02/16/1787  10/12/1833





From Baird's History of Clark County, published 1909, p. 74:

"Mathias Hester, one of the pioneers of Clark county, while in Kentucky in 1793, was employed in teaming between Louisville and Shelbyville, with a man named Leatherman. On one trip when they had passed "Benney Hughes'" station on the way to Shelbyville, they were fired upon by a party of Indians. Leatherman managed to escape, but Hester was shot with a rifle ball from a distance of four paces; the ball striking him above the left eye, breaking his skull. He fell from his horse, but started to escape by running. He was prostrated three times in running one hundred and seventy yards by the pain and being blinded by the blood, his last fall happening when his pursuers were so close behind him that he decided to feign death and submit to their torture. The first Indian struck him a glancing stroke on the head with his tomahawk and the second saluted him likewise. They scalped him and during the performance of htis horrible act repeatedly speared him in the back as he lay upon the ground. After their butchery they took the horses and road away. Hester, wonderful to say, recovered, and in the fall of 1799 he removed to the Illinois grant and took up his residence beyond Springville, at what is now Charlestown.

"The Indians were accustomed to stop at [Mathias Hester's] house and ask for lodging when returning north from trading at the French store at "Tullytown" [Springville]. On one night two Indians applied for and received quarters for the night and, as they had a jug of whiskey, it was not long before Hester was obliged to send his little son to a neighbor's house for help, meanwhile secreting one of their large butcher knives in a crack in the wall. After the arrival of the neighbor, who had asked to smoke with the tomahawk of one of the Indians, the savage became suspicious and when he missed his knife immediately wrenched the tomahawk from the neighbor's hand and assaulted Hester with it. The Indians were finally prevailed upon to desist by kind expressions and signs and peace prevailed in the Hester household. Such incidents as these did not create a great love for the Indians in the breast of the elder Hester.

"About 1820 a sale or gathering of some sort was held near Charlestown and Hester, with most of the inhabitants of the town was in attendance. Some Indians were as usual in attendance and one old buck approached Hester, and looking at the scalp wound on the top of his head solemnly remarked, 'Me thought me kill you.' It was the wretch who had scalped him years before in Kentucky, and it is said that the victim of that operation became so violent towards the savage that it required the united persuasion of all of his friends to prevent his shooting him on the spot."

Judge Melville C. Hester, of Charlestown, is a grandson of John Mathias Hester, who was born in Hanover, Germany, July 4, 1767, emigrated to Philadelphia in 1772.  His father not being able to pay for this family passage (price sixty pounds), they were sold into servitude for a term of years to pay the debt.  The family remained in hard and cruel bondage for the space of twelve months, and after serving a year, the cruel tyrant compelled him to pay the sixty pounds money he had borrowed before he would grant him and his family their freedom.

John Mathias Hester emigrated to Kentucky when nineteen years old, and descended the Ohio on a flat-boat, making narrow escapes from the Indians.  On one occasion a party of them headed by a white man, after failing to decoy them ashore, fired many shots into their boat.  After arriving in Louisville, Mr. Hester teamed a great deal, and on one occaion, in removing two families from Pond settlement to Shelbyville, were fired on at a place called Benny Hughes station, by a party of Indians, two of the company wounded, and Mr. Hester shot above the left eye with a rifle ball, which broke his skull, but did not enter the brain.  He immediately dismounted, and would have escaped, being fleet of foot, but the streaming blood from his wound obstructed his sight, and after a run of 175 yards he was overtaken, tomahawked ["The ax glanced, only chipping the skull"], and scalped, from which he, however, survived.  Eighteen months after this event, he was married to Miss Susan Huckleberry, and in 1799 moved to a tract of land adjacent to the present site of Charlestown, and a mile and a half from Tuleytown, known afterwards as Springville.

He [John Mathias Hester] raised a large family of children, of whom Rev. George K. Hester, the father of Judge Hester, was the oldest son.  He became a minister of the gospel in the Methodist Episcopal church, and continued as such until his death, a period of fifty-six years.  He died September 2, 1874.

Craven P. Hester, the second son, became a distinquished lawyer, and judge of the circuit court in the State of California.

Uriah A., another sone, was a physician.

Milton P., another son, became a farmer in Illinois.

There were also two daughters who married prominent men.

Rev. George Knight Hester married Miss Briggs in 1820, and had seven sons, two of whom died in infancy.  Four of them, Francis A., Mathias A., William M., and Andrew B., became Methodist ministers, and have served with a zeal worthy of their calling.

Judge Hester, the youngest of the family, was born in Scott County, Indiana, January 20, 1834.  He was educated at Asbury university, Indiana, in 1855, and attained to the highest average class standing for scholarship and deportment, but graduated at the University of Bloomington, Indiana.  He studied law, and engaged in the practice of his profession in 1857, in partnership with Judge Baker, afterwards Governor Baker, and in 1859 removed to Charlestown, where has since remained.  In 1870 he was appointed by Governor Baker as prosecuting attorney of the Twenty-seventh judicial circuit, and afterwards appointed judge of that circuit court to fill an unexpired term of six months.  He was married to Miss Mariah S. Williard, of Vanderburg county, Indiana, December 27, 1855, and his children by this marriage are all living.

His [Craven Hester's] mother Bence Briggs, was born in Scotland, December 12, 1789, and died at his house September 9, 1878.  In 1820 she and Judge Scott organized a Sunday-school, said to have been the first in the State, in the old court-house.  She was a well-educated woman, and had a remarkable intellect, and was held in high esteem by those who knew her.