This is what is known and documented about David Farmer Hood:

David Hood was born in Weakley County, TN, to John Hood and Sarah Farmer, prosperous owners of a considerable 2500-acre non-slave farm there. Grandson of a Revolutionary War veteran, he was the third of five children. When David was age 2, the first-born older sister died when she was age 8. David's father died at age 37 when David was only 7. And then the Civil War came. David's older brother, John, is thought to have become a Confederate soldier, so far lost to the ages never mentioned again, and not found. David and his two younger brothers, Earl and Andrew, eventually grew to age and joined the Union forces. David was captured while recruiting to complete his battalion, sent to Andersonville Prison in Georgia, and never officially mustered into service (not uncommon). Released from Andersonville at the end-of-war exchange 15 April 1865, he returned home to the State of Tennessee which was still greatly divided philosophically between neighbors. About 1870, he left for Asherville, Kansas, and his mother, surviving brothers, and war-widowed sister joined him there in 1872. He married PERMELIA ARVELENE ABERCROMBIE on February 24, 1876 in Saltville, Salt Creek Township, Mitchell County, Kansas. He was 37 and she was 21. They had three children - John Clemeth Hood, James Earl Hood, and Lulu Sarah Hood. Permelia died in 1936 and is buried with her daughter, LULU HOOD MUNZ in Duchesne Cemetery, Duchesne, Utah. Son JOHN C. HOOD died in Kansas City, MO in 1918 and is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery there. Son JAMES EARL HOOD, called "EARL", last lived in or near Great Falls, Cascade County, Montana, and died 24 October 1956. His burial location has not yet been documented, but the search goes on.

David F. Hood was buried 100 years before his gravesite was located and marked formally on August 24, 2012, next to his brother Earl. This is mentioned here only because so many people have responded to a newspaper and other articles written about this 7-year search process and the headstone installation that was finally achieved - comments such as, "Thank you for describing in detail how [she] accomplished this" and "I had almost given up hope of locating [my ancestor]. Fires have indeed destroyed many official records; it's good to know there are other ways to find the data you're searching for." So don't give up hope. You may need to hire professional researchers and a scientist in this case, but the U.S. government finally acknowledged David Hood's Civil War service and his burial place, and supplied the Civil War-replica veteran's headstone, nearly 150 years after his service.

Written & submitted by his Great Granddaughter, 2012-edited 2013