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Grafton, UT — A ghost town campout led one scout leader to a family history discovery years in the making.
John Jacobs is the assistant scout master for a troop of scouts from Kanab in southern Utah. He said they organized the campout in the small, abandoned town of Grafton. The scouts chose the spot as a fitting location for an October overnighter.
The last inhabitants of Grafton, an early LDS cotton-growing municipality, left the area in 1945. Since then, the old buildings and structures have been maintained by various historical groups.
During their campout, Jacobs and his troop found the old Grafton cemetery.
“There’s an old graveyard there with graves from the 1800s,” Jacobs said. “Some of the headstones are stone and some are wood. A few are unmarked, the names have been worn away from some for many years.”
Jacobs read an informational plaque at the entrance to the cemetery and noticed the name “Bybee” mentioned on the grave roster.
Having a few Bybee’s in his family line, Jacobs sent the scouts on a hunt to find the marker.
“When we found the grave of Byrum Bybee, I thought ‘That’s cool’, snapped a photo with my phone, and we moved on.” Jacobs said.
The headstone was newer. Jacobs said he figures it had been replaced in recent years by members of the Bybee family.
Days later Jacobs was at a family event and passed around the photos of the headstones from the graveyard. His uncle recognized the name Bybee as that of the family's great-great-grandmother, Polly Chapman Bybee. Together, Jacobs and his relatives figured out a large piece of his family history puzzle.
“We went online and discovered that Byrum was our fourth great-grandfather,” Jacobs said. “We never knew he was buried here.”
According to the gravemarker, Byrum died in 1864.
The next Sunday, Jacobs and his extended family made the 90 minute drive from Kanab to Grafton to visit the grave of his long lost relative. He said the information they received from the headstone completed links in his family history they’d been waiting years to find.
“The grave is so close,” Jacobs said. “We just never knew it was out here.”
