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SE Ohio
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# Posted: 6 May 2013 11:37am - Edited by: SE Ohio
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This one in the Zaleski State Forest was just about lost to nature when "found" in 1959. There is now a trail to it, but only a few of the many graves are marked. Sadly, several were graves of kids who didn't make it past 2 years old, so common in the day.
My kids really enjoyed the hike with the "spooky" destination.
A grave in the woods
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Another grave marker
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hattie
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# Posted: 6 May 2013 12:43pm
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I love old cemeteries. Dad and I used to visit them whenever we found one and I have good memories of that.
When we bought our cabin - now our house, Bob and I decided to clean up the old, neglected pioneer cemetery nearby. We are now the unofficial caretakers of it (some other locals are pitching in to help now too which is really great!). We've spent years mapping it out and finding out who is buried there. The records were lost decades ago. By going through old newspaper obituaries and then looking up death certificates we have been able to find out who is there and have posted a proper index and map. Below are some photos.
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Cemetery_2_2008SBob.jpg
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manny
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# Posted: 6 May 2013 01:35pm
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hattie ,that is absolutely. amazing. wow that must of been a lot of work.but a job well done.You and your husband must be very proud.
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hattie
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# Posted: 6 May 2013 02:38pm
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Thanks manny. We have had so much fun with this project (and continue to do so). I feel like I know the people buried there. (We have actually come to know the families of some of the people there because they were curious who was looking after the cemetery.)Every spring I sweep off the headstones and repeat as necessary during the year. Bob week wacks once a year and our neighbour has fixed up some broken headstones and taken out dead trees. We've put in a few benches and a year ago planted over 300 daffodil bulbs. They were just starting to pop up last time we were there. We will have to go back in the next week or so to do my sweeping.
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SE Ohio
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# Posted: 6 May 2013 03:20pm
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Hattie,
Nice job! Have you added your cemetery to findagrave.com? One can add pictures and bio info such as the obits you have researched. Just added "my" cemetery pictures earlier today.
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Bevis
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# Posted: 6 May 2013 03:54pm
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Thats good Hattie. Years ago while in the Army. We ran across an old pioneer grave site that was never marked on our maps. A group of us mapped it, and began taking care of it, until it was taken over by the base historical committee.
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hattie
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# Posted: 6 May 2013 05:41pm
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Quoting: Bevis Years ago while in the Army. We ran across an old pioneer grave site that was never marked on our maps. A group of us mapped it, and began taking care of it, until it was taken over by the base historical committee.
WOW that is great Beavis!!! It is nice that you cared enough to map it and then take care of it.
Quoting: SE Ohio Have you added your cemetery to findagrave.com? One can add pictures and bio info such as the obits you have researched. Just added "my" cemetery pictures earlier today.
I haven't heard of that site before. I will have to look into it. We do have our cemetery on the Canada Gravemarker website. Thanks for the info. I'll go and check it out.
If you ever decide to look after the cemetery, you can clean up those headstones with dishsoap mixed in water and a toothbrush. It takes a LOT of scrubbing and when you are done, just rinse with some clear water and dry with a towel. We had some bad ones like that in our cemetery and they came up great! I got the information on how to clean them from the Canadian War Graves society when they asked us to clean up one of the veteran's headstones. It looked like new when we were finished with it and you could read it perfectly again.
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KSalzwedel
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# Posted: 6 May 2013 08:19pm
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I love old cemeteries and the history they tell. So sad when they end up neglected.
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trollbridge
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# Posted: 7 May 2013 10:06am
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That's awesome! There's nothing more humbling to me than walking thru old cemeteries-really makes me reflect on how fortunate I am. Imagine the heartaches so many pioneer families endured 
I love that these cemeteries are lovingly being taken care of-it's so helpful and important for those recording their family histories and of course, shows respect to those from long ago.
Hattie, did you and Bob put up the picket fencing? I think that is really neat!
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hattie
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# Posted: 7 May 2013 12:20pm - Edited by: hattie
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Quoting: trollbridge Hattie, did you and Bob put up the picket fencing? I think that is really neat!
No, many of the fences are REALLY old. We did put up a fence around our plot. We figured since we are looking after the place, we should be allowed to be buried there too. We call our plot our "tomb with a view" because it overlooks the valley. Kind of grosses out our kids though. *LOL* In the third photo you can see a brown fence in the back of the photo to the right - that is ours.
One of our neighbours has been amazing at working on some of the really old fences. A tree came down last year and knocked down a fence. The neighbour chopped up the tree, removed it and rebuilt the fence! He said he plans on working on some of the other fences in the cemetery this summer.
We put grave markers down where there were graves (even if we didn't know who was in them). We just marked them "Un-named" (you can see the small black markers in the third photo) so no one would bury anyone there by accident. That was a real problem years ago. When a local died, the rancher would just dig a hole and in they'd go. Occasionally he would hit a grave when he was digging, so he'd just fill it up and move over a bit. To avoid that, we mapped out the cemetery (including the Un-named graves). We also have many names for people who are buried there but we don't know where (obviously in the un-named graves). I wanted to include their names for genealogists in the future and just to respect them and remember them.
Old cemeteries can be very interesting when you stop to really look at them. In ours, we discovered that most of the proper cemetery is on the right and then there were a few graves on the left. On the left were the Chinese and the town madam "Hattie" (guess where I got my handle from? *S*). They were not allowed to be buried in the "proper" cemetery, so were placed on the other side. Now there are newer graves there, but in the old days that is how it was done. And most of the Chinese graves were exhumed so their bones could be sent back to China. It is part of their belief that to complete the cycle of life they need to go back to their country of birth.
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MJW
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# Posted: 7 May 2013 12:26pm
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That is wonderful, hattie! You and your husband are incredible folks!
On our RV trip, one of our favorite things to do was find and visit all of the older cemeteries in the areas we visited. Most have quite a story to tell. Unfortunately, many of them were run down and very neglected.
There seem to be dozens of smaller, very old cemeteries here in the area where we built our place but we have been too busy to see many of them.
Maybe now that the initial construction is over we will have the time to check them out.
Funny I say that knowing that our list of "things we still want to do" is at least a mile long. haha
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trollbridge
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# Posted: 7 May 2013 11:20pm
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MJW...a trip to the cemetery on a warm summer evening-grab your wife and son, put them in the car, buy an ice cream cone and walk the cemeteries...priceless 
Hattie it looks like a peaceful final resting spot! Lol......weird that I know that about you now  but seriously, I hope that future generations continue to tend to your wonderful little cemetery. These really are treasures that should not be overlooked!
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hattie
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# Posted: 7 May 2013 11:57pm
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Quoting: trollbridge Hattie it looks like a peaceful final resting spot! Lol......weird that I know that about you now
haha...well, we're kinds weird anyway. *LOL*
SEOhio - I just managed to get our cemetery added to the findagrave.com website. I took awhile because our town wasn't listed in their list of cities for British Columbia. *LOL* I had to get them to add it.
Been working all night on the spreadsheet for all the graves. There are 132. I have them all copied out, so now I need Bob to help me proofread. Tomorrow he tells me. *S* That is a great site. You can add photos too. I have photos of all the headstones, so once I get the graves all listed, I'll add the photos.
That is a great website for genealogists!!! Lots of information can be put in for each person.
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SE Ohio
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# Posted: 8 May 2013 10:59am
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Hattie,
Findagrave.com is pretty neat. I've received lots of thanks from people who found an ancestors grave thanks to my entries. My oldest cub scout has received thank yous for pictures he has added, and it makes him proud.
I've added all ancestor and cousin graves to my "virtual cemetery". I have another "virtual cemetery" for departed friends. I've added bios for friends and family, and can get to my virtual cemetery without having to search the dbase.
Glad you have added your cemetery. I'm still looking for some pictures I took in England to add... Kinda expensive to retake those!
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hattie
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# Posted: 11 May 2013 04:09pm
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YAY....We were just up at the cemetery sweeping off the headstones and it looks like everything's coming up daffodils. 
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Smawgunner
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# Posted: 12 May 2013 09:38pm
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Maybe that old story about Moonville IS true (the train wouldn't stop because of some plague) LOL! Great pics.
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buckybuck
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# Posted: 13 May 2013 05:05pm - Edited by: buckybuck
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SE Ohio--As Smawgunner hinted in his post, you are referring to the cemetery near the haunted Moonville tunnel, right? Brrrrrrr!
There's also an interesting cemetery just south of Wellston on SR 327 called the Woodson Cemetery. It's the burial site of one of Sally Hemming's children, Thomas Woodson, and his family. Woodson was born while Sally Hemming was with Thomas Jefferson in Paris, sooooooooo, speculation for many years was that he was Thomas Jefferson's child. Reasonable belief, since Hemmings named the child Thomas, and I believe he was one of only a handful of Jefferson's slaves (he had some 650) who were freed when Jefferson died. But Sally Hemming apparently had the last laugh--DNA testing in the 1990's indicate that Jefferson was not Woodson's father after all.
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SE Ohio
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# Posted: 14 May 2013 10:01am
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Buckybuck,
Neat story about the Woodson Cemetery. Have not been there (my family in not NEARLY as enthusiastic about cemeteries).
The pictures posted are of a cemetery off SR 278 (half hour walk from Hope Furnace), a few hours walk from Moonville. There is a Moonville cemetery across Raccoon Creek from the "haunted" Moonville (train) tunnel. Moonville cemetery is well-kept. And yes, the Moonville stories abound! I've even made up a few to scare my boys...
One Moonville ghost description matches the miner 49'er from Scooby Doo, but certainly predates the cartoon. They say sometimes people see a lantern glowing at night as the engineer searches for his missing head... Another ghost is the "Lavender Lady", and people smell her sweet flowers. Yet another story involves a girl being hit by a train as she was crossing the railroad bridge by the tunnel as she was returning on foot from the store- In the 1970's! Right... Town has been empty since the 1940's, and there isn't a residence or store nearby. Good ghost stories, though.
A foot/bike railtrail restoration project is underway (tracks and bridges were pulled up in the 80's). But I digress...
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trollbridge
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# Posted: 19 May 2013 06:16pm
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Hi Hattie!
I was at church this morning and the minister was talking about how he grew up in a house that had two sides surrounded by an old cemetery, plus another one just down the road. He explained how he spent hours and hours playing as a child and working as a teen-he was paid for each gopher he caught. Lol. Anyway, just made me think about you and your wonderful town cemetery.
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hattie
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# Posted: 19 May 2013 11:19pm
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Thanks trollbridge...Funny you talk about gopher hunting. There is a ranch/sawmill up the mountain from us. They have serious gopher problems so every spring Bob goes up there with his airgun and gets rid of some for them. The gopher holes cause problems with the cattle, so the rancher doesn't like them.
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trollbridge
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# Posted: 20 May 2013 08:48am
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The daffodils are pretty...mine are finally blooming-very, very late this year.
I find your cemetery so intriguing. We have many old ones around here, but none are as unique looking as yours. I love the carved wood headstones. What do the oldest graves date back to?
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hattie
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# Posted: 21 May 2013 12:58am - Edited by: hattie
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Quoting: trollbridge What do the oldest graves date back to?
I know there are some graves from 1886, but we don't know exactly where they are located in the cemetery. The oldest grave that is in a location we know of is 1898.
I just finished putting the entire cemetery together with headstone photos and a few photos of people that I had, on the findagrave website. That is such an amazing site. Great for genealogists. Thanks again SE Ohio for telling me about it.
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bukhntr
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# Posted: 13 Jul 2013 11:43pm - Edited by: bukhntr
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I enjoy an old cemetary as well, amazing to imagine what those tomb stones could tell. We have a 4 acre cemetary notched into the corner of our land. It is well maintained and has a few newer burials but most are late 1800's to 1930's. Ther oldest marked is 1873 i believe. but many small unmarked simple stones. whenever we have a new visitor at the cabin we always make a journey over there. It is also accessed by the old road and stone wagon bridge we found on our property. I will put a pick of the cemetary up later
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Bevis
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# Posted: 14 Jul 2013 12:26pm
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While out walking some property with a friend yesterday. We stumbled across a small cemetery. He called his father to see if he knew about it...He had heard a rumor that one was nearby but didn't know if it was on their land or someone elses. We are going to map it and clean it up.
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silverwaterlady
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# Posted: 14 Jul 2013 12:50pm
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There are two graves on my property in SW Ohio. One is a Civil War solider and the other a little girl that lived in the house previous to my Grandma. I have not seen the graves. I might go there this summer and take some photos.
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