As a kid of less than 10 years of age someone took me to see this. It, has lived in my dreams forever. Being a self proclaimed daydreamer, I just couldn’t shake being buried under all that cold hard stone. Perhaps it’s the birth of my wish to be cremated and my ashes spread from Wiseman’s View over Linville Gorge. This object of my undying fascination and of a 20 “in search of” is the final resting place of William Andrew Jeffreys, North Carolina State Senator from 1844 to 1845 when he succumb to Typhoid fever. According to any written articles that I have read he simply had a fear of being buried below ground. That directly contradicts the legend that had me so enthralled as a young boy. I had always heard that he wished to be buried in Wake County and some age old law prohibited it, so he a thinker and a doer spent his free time carving out the huge boulder that resided on the family farm to be his final, unmovable resting place.
The sadness of it all is that some young punks (I at 33, sound like my father) have broken the engraved marble slab that covers the tomb itself and because of this act the family has had the State remove the Historic Site Sign that read “Unique Tomb” and there are No Trespassing Signs posted everywhere. Yes, I occasionally break the law, but only for science. It is hard to find. .There is a clear cut path that you can see from the road and there are two huge trees blocking it with only enough room to walk in between. Click HERE for a map. I, by any fashion am not giving anyone permission to visit but if you do please respect this unique treasure.
Further Reading The State Magazine – March 1971, Vol. 38
