PARSONS – The Mount Olive Cemetery created an endowment with the Tucker Community Foundation to provide perpetual funding for the ongoing maintenance, upkeep, and preservation of the Mount Olive Cemetery located outside of Philippi, Barbour County, WV. The fund will be named the Mount Olive Cemetery Fund.
The Mount Olive Cemetery is a historical site in Barbour County, WV. On September 15, 1800, Isaac Votaw and Ann, his wife, of Harrison County in the state of Virginia on the one part and Benjamin Yates, John Votaw, Zacariah Ellyson, Moses Votaw, Preston Beck and Isaac Votaw, Jr., members of the Richland Meeting, as trustees for the special purpose of holding the following described tract of land in trust for the use of the Society of Friends of the said Richland Meeting for a meeting place and burial grounds. In the late 1940’s, Judge Ira Robinson, founder and president of the Barbour County Historical Society, who stems from Quaker ancestry, began research to discover something of the history of the Friends known to have resided here. It is known that the Society of Friends maintained a meeting place near what is now known as the Cherry Hill Farm.
Since that time, trustees were always appointed to have the cemetery maintained. Over the years, the cemetery was cleared by volunteers, then through donations, as the Trustees have not charged to grave sites, they were able to hire someone to mow the cemetery. They now have five trustees: John Green, President, David Matko, Vice President and assistant Treasurer, Carolyn Waddell, Secretary & Treasurer, Ladonna Davis and Chris Irvine as Trustees.
“We are so excited to be working with the Mount Olive Cemetery to help preserve the history of Barbour County.” said Michael Moore, Chief Financial officer for the Tucker Community Foundation. If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to the Mount Olive Cemetery Fund, make checks payable to TCF, and note Mount Olive Cemetery Fund in the memo line and mail to the Tucker Community Foundation, P.O. Box 491, Parsons, WV 26287. Online donations can be made at www.tuckerfoundation.net.
The Tucker Community Foundation manages more than 140 endowed funds providing annual scholarships and grants to nonprofits and charitable causes throughout it’s eight-county service area. Inspired by the flood of 1985, the mission of the Foundation is “to create opportunities for the communities we serve”. For more information on how to set-up an endowed fund or to learn about the foundation, call 304-478-2930.