J. Harvey Blevins

James Harvey Blevins is buried at Walnut Grove Baptist Church Cemetery in Hays, North Carolina, beside his wife, Phoebe Holloway Blevins.

Although it's difficult to read, Harvey's grave marker indicates that he was born April 1, 1849, and died January 4, 1922. There is no way of knowing how quickly after his passing that the marker was placed, but it looks quite similar to other tombstones in the cemetery that are dated around that same time.

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So, Harvey's birth and death dates are "written in stone". The question remains - when was he born, and when did he die?

Harvey was born long before North Carolina required birth certificates. His family were most likely Baptists, who did not record births as some denominations do. His North Carolina Death Certificate indicates that he was born in April 1854, not April 1849.

He does not appear in the 1850 census, and in fact, his parents married in January 1854. In 1860 the census lists Harvey as a five-year old.  In 1870, he's 14 years old. In 1880,  he's a married man of 25. According to the 1900 census information, over the next 20 years, he got 25 years older - in 1900 he is listed as 50.  In 1910, he's listed as 56 years old.  In 1920, he's 64.  Except for the 1900 census, all of these ages would be about right for a birthdate of 1854 or 1855. My conclusion is that the birthdate on the tombstone is in error.

The other question is, when did he die?

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This death certificate was located at the Wilkes County Courthouse, but I am still unable to locate it on Ancestry.com. Harvey's death certificate lists his death as occurring on January 20, 1920.  Not January 4, 1922, as indicated on his tombstone.  And the membership roll of Walnut Grove church indicates that he "Died January 1921".  So I'm pretty sure that he died in January, but not sure which year.

Harvey was listed in the 1860 census as "James H. Blevins" and as Harvey on the other censuses, and on his death certificate as "John Harvy Blevins". Since he went by his middle name, this conflict really doesn't bother me.

His great-grandson, (my father-in-law) who was born nine or ten or eleven years after his great-grandfather died, remembers hearing that Harvey wore red wool socks and that he groaned a lot, presumably because he was "old and had rheumatism."

But perhaps he wasn't as old as his tombstone indicates.