The Friends of Myers Cemetery

David Louis Myers and
Jane McInnis Myers

Above: David Louis Myers, sporting Masonic lapel pin (around 1880)

David Louis Myers

Born in the Santee District of Orangeburgh County, SC, in 1818, David L. Myers was the youngest child of Frederick Daniel Myers and Rachael Dantzler Rhodes Myers.

David left South Carolina with his family and their slaves on a wagon train bound for Texas in 1820. Instead, they stayed in Mississippi with at least three other associated families from Orangeburgh District.

David grew to manhood, helping out on the family plantation in Perry County, near the Leaf River. As a young man in 1842, David formally became a member of the Methodist Church at Lewis Camp Ground in Mobile County.

During the time the Myers family lived in Mississippi, David Louis Myers met his future wife, Jane or Janet McInnis of Covington County.

David and his wife started their married life near her parents' plantation in Covington County, where their first child, a son, Daniel Angus, was born. However, the baby did not live and, soon after his death, the family moved back to David's family home in Perry County, where three daughters were born.

After the death of one of the baby girls in 1855, the family joined Frederick Daniel and his sons John Henry and Daniel Porter Myers at Chickasabogue in Northern Mobile County, Alabama.

Four girls were born to the couple after the move to Alabama, but only two survived childhood.

The obituary of David Louis Myers states that he had been an invalid since 1853. However, it does not state why or what form his illness took.

Above: The daughters of David L. and Jane M. Myers, circa 1890, top left to right: Janie Myers Seale; Maggie Myers Dodds; Bottom left to right: Mary Myers Ramsay; Rachael Myers Thomas

The graves of the two Myers daughters who died as children can be seen today in Myers Cemetery, near the headstones of David L. Myers and his wife.

Of the four Myers daughters who lived to adulthood, two are buried at Myers Cemetery, in now unmarked graves. A third is buried at Old Whistler Cemetery, and the fourth in Mississippi City, MS.

David Myers' profession is listed in a Civil War-era Mobile Country census as "butcher".

David Myers also owned a good deal of land in the Eight Mile-Chickasabogue Park area. However, with the end of the war and the advent of Reconstruction, family oral history has it that David Myers was so land-poor that he was forced to sell a hill in trade for a mule and that, thereafter, this real estate became known as "Mule Hill" for a time.

In spite of or because of Reconstruction, David Myers continued to sell off much of the lands that he owned in and around Eight Mile. However, one notable parcel of land, was donated by him and his wife during this time to build the little Methodist-Episcopalian Church in Eight Mile. This also became known as the "Little Church in the Pines". This little one-room church also served as Eight Mile's first school house. Today the church has been relocated from its previous location in Eight Mile to Chickasabogue Park and is open to the public as a local history museum.

David Myers was an active and prominent member of the Bowen Masonic Lodge in Whistler, Alabama.

Myers also helped build the original Whistler Methodist Church and assisted at its dedication. He was one of the small number of survivors of that body who attended and added in the dedication of the present church.

When David Louis Myers died in 1888, he was attended by two nurses who had rocked his cradle in childhood.

Above: Grave of David L. Myers

David Louis Myers' headstone is still present, but barely legible, as illustrated above, and in need of replacement.

Jane McInnis Myers

Jane McInnis Myers was born in 1824 in Covington County, Mississippi, the daughter of Angus McInnis, a planter.

Not much is known regarding Jane McInnis Myers in addition to her role as a homemaker and the mother of eight children, total, except that she made beautiful lace, a skill that she passed on to at least one of her daughters.

Her obituary appeared in 1894 in the local newspaper.

As mentioned in the obituary, Jane McInnis Myers is buried in Myers Cemetery next to her husband and daughters. Her headstone is still present, but barely legible and needs replacement.

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