Just want to let everyone know that the small Cottrill Cemetery off Rte. 119 on Speed Rd., 6 miles south of Spencer is being restored. The cemetery is the resting place for Rachel Hughes Cottrill and some of her descendants. Rachel (1779-1860) Hughes Cottrill was the daughter of the West Virginia frontiersman & Indian fighter Jesse and Grace Tanner Hughes. She and William Cottrill (1770-1825)were married May 19, 1794 in Harrison Co., VA(WV) and were the parents of 9 children, many of whom settled on Spring Creek area of present-day Roane County.

Every marker in the Cottrill Family Cemetery had been vandalized, broken, and otherwise made illegible. The cemetery grounds were strewn with barrels of unknown materials, tires, broken bottles, overgrown with trees, etc. & was basically being used as a trash dump.
Plans are underway to restore the cemetery by reassembling & resetting the markers, fencing the area and possibly getting a new marker for Rachel Hughes Cottrill. Her marker has been found but broken into over 50 pieces!

The picture posted with this article is from Fall 2007. All of that undergrowth has now been removed and the individual markers have been identified with numbered stakes.

Help is needed with further cleanup and financial help is needed for the project. If you have questions, you may contact me, Linda Cottrell Liss, at WVRoots@aol.com
Restoration donations may be sent to me & made payable to Cottrill Cemetery Restoration Project, 262 Pine Circle, Dunbar, WV 25064-1240.