Darnestown Presbyterian Church, founded in 1855, in Montgomery County, Maryland, is where I reckon Lemuel Offutt (great grandfather) met Sarah Dukes (great grandmother.) Their names are only a few pages apart in the church records; he was baptized as an adult on January 1, 1871 and she joined the church on June 7, 1873.(1)
In the cemetery are many Offutts, as well as J. T. Kelley, guardian to Sarah and her siblings after their father’s death, and Andrew Small, a Scottish immigrant, who founded an academy that Lemuel attended and where he may have taught school for a while before studying medicine. I’ve posted a few of the photos I took – the markers for Lemuel’s mother Mary, and his sisters Ella and Rose, one of the old church building and “Offutt Row.” Rose died at the age of 19 in 1870; she was Lemuel’s older sister by only a year. It may have been right after her death that that he took up his medical studies. And of course he named his first daughter Mary Ella. Big name recyclers – those Offutts. Here’s a link to the church website. Click on About, then Our History to learn more: http://www.darnestownpc.org/——————————————————————————–
(1) Darnestown Presbyterian Church (Darnestown, Maryland). Register of Pastors, Members, Baptisms and Marriages, Book 1. Montgomery County Historical Society (Rockville, Maryland) Manuscript Collection, Folder 1. Photocopy.
Family Epic 