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From: Charles Piatt <>
Subject: [PIATT] Dinah Piatt Thornburg
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 21:22:25 -0400


On Sunday, 27 August 2000, 150 years, 1 month, and 1 day after her death, I
visited the grave of Dinah Piatt Thornburg. The location of her burial came
in information graciously shared by Carla Forgey Smith a descendant of Dinah
and her husband Thomas Thornburg.

Dinah's tombstone is strangely shaped, remining me of the headboard of a four
poster bed, and it is dark but readable. The inscription is:

In memory of
Dinah wife of
Thomas Thornburgh [sic]
who departed this life
July 26th 1850
aged 70 years

With this inscription we can surmise that Dinah was born between 27 July 1769
and July 26, 1770. She would have turned 14 the year that her father Jacob
Piatt (who married Elizabeth Dunham(?)) died in 1784 in Washington Co PA.
Jacob's will (written in 1870 when she was about 10) bequeathed to her "one
cow, one Ew [sic, (ewe)] and one lamb."

Dinah is buried in Union Cemetery in Robinson Township, Allegheny Co PA. This
cemetery is a large one lying below Union Presbyterian Church which sits on a
hill on PA 60. The church has a commanding view of ever expanding retail
development west of Pittsburgh. The original tombstone of Thomas Thornburg is
no longer readable, but in front of the older stone a newer flat stone has
been set which reads:

Thomas Thornberry [sic]
PA militia
Revolutionary War
1769-1855

Others of the family of Dinah and Thomas are buried in this cemetery in
Robinson Township. One daughter, Rebecca Thornburg (b 9 Dec 1791, Thornburg
PA; d June 1852, Robinson Township, Allegheny Co PA) married William Forgey.
One of their sons (grandson of Dinah and Thomas Thornburg) was named Jacob
Piatt Forgey. Jacob Piatt Forgey was born 28 Feb 1811 in Robinson Township
but died in Cincinnati OH on 8 Dec 1879. He is buried in Cincinnati in the
Spring Grove Cemetery where other Piatts, notably poet John James Piatt, are
buried. With the Piatt name still prominent in and around Cincinnati at the
time Jacob Piatt Forgey was there I have to wonder if Jacob Piatt Forgey ever
investigated his relationship to the others.

Laverne Ingram Piatt
Ontario, OH

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