Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Historical commission aims to return tombstone
The grave marker was stored at WCU for more than 40years, and is now sitting at a Westtown maintenance building.
WESTTOWN >> Who is this guy?
What we do know: Valentine Kirgan lived from 1771-1831 and was lead mason on the first Pennsylvania State Capitol Building. The capitol was designed by Robert Mills, who also designed the Washington Monument.
What we don’t know: Any Kirgan family members in the area who are related to the master stone mason?
Why this is important: Kirgan was buried in the Taylor Family Burying Ground, at Street Road and Tower Course Drive. Kirgan’s was the only tombstone recovered, while serving in 1973 as a barn step.
The half-acre graveyard, containing about 150 graves of Taylor friends, family and neighbors, was covered over to make way for houses in the 1980s at Pleasant Grove residential community.
The Taylors started using the burial ground in 1732, with the last known burial in 1868 or 1869.
David Walter, of the Westtown Township Historical Commission, wants to return the 100-pound marble tombstone to the family.
WCU Professor of Archaeology Dr. Marshall Becker conducted a professional recovery excavation of the burial ground in the 1970s. He unearthed about 30 individuals, but work was halted and the graveyard was “lost” when the farm was sold to a residential builder.
Walter said that about 1,000 residents called the township home in 1950, and 12,000 are now Westtown residents.
“Eleven thousand people didn’t grow up here and should appreciate the history,” Walter said. “To understand the present, you need to know the past, in order to prepare for the future.”
Kirgan moved back to the township and married Deborah Taylor Hawley, daughter of Thomas Taylor Jr. and granddaughter of Col. Thomas Taylor, on Feb. 15, 1823.
They had one daughter, Deborah Hawley Kirgan, who married Joseph Hunt in 1842, and they had several children.
“That’s where we hope the genealogical trail will lead to the present day,” Walter said.
The grave marker was stored at WCU for more than 40 years, and is now sitting at a Westtown maintenance building. Family members are known to be buried at Birmingham Lafayette Cemetery.