This map shows the various historical sites of the Warden family along Big Dry Creek & Road. We are a few miles south of Campbellsville Giles County
Perhaps a spot that could be used here would be GPS Latitude: 35.29613, Longitude: -87.14241, not the exact spot on the above map. I chose the spot under the nearest tree line. I must say this is an archeological perspective and not a legal one. Lets not hold the land owner accountable for this spot. This information stands on theory only.
This old 1876 map shows the names of the land owners locating their homes on what is today Big Dry Creek Road on the west side of the road.
An Aerial view of the area in question with my best guess marked in red. 35.2978 N X 87.139 W Giles County
Tennessee USA
Zooming in I have his grave pegged** as being somewhere in this photo above on that hillock. At Richard Warden's time of death (1881) all that land upon the hilltop was woods* and his grave was probably destroyed when the area was bulldozed sometime in the mid to late 1900s. I do not know if he had an inscribed gravestone. No doubt they at least marked his grave with a common boulder.
*It was woods because in those days they had no reason to clear off the hill tops. Crops could not be grown up there. The soil was not good enough - without fertilizers. Folks wanted to be interred on the hill tops because that was better for preservation and closer to heaven.
**Location conclusions drawn from the Newspaper Obituary, Family information and overlaying the 1876 DG Beers map of Giles County onto today's topographical maps showing where the Richard Warden farm house was located.
Please keep in mind this is an archeological (theoretical) perspective. I have no absolute proof of the grave site, so don't go visiting here for the gravestone & pestering the current land owner looking for the grave of Richard Warden. C. Wayne Austin ggg-Nephew.
Mapping Google mapping/MS Streets & Trips & DG Beers 1876 Mapping, revised for the viewing of the cemetery from the road 20 Oct 2010.
