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About 20 years ago my father was director of a Scout camp, up in the mountains in Virginia. My brothers and I went to visit for a week one year after the campers had left for a season. We fished, boated all over the lake, and hiked around the grounds some. Two incidents stand out:

The USGS topo map of the area showed a small graveyard near the top of one of the hills. With some effort, one of my brothers and I hiked up there. We found a double plot fenced in with a cast-iron fence, about 12 x 12. There were two gravestones there dating back from the early 1800's. They were quite legible. There were also footstones with initials on them at the ends of the graves. No signs of vandalism. Two trees were growing out of the graves, one large (I'd say 50 to 100 years old) and one much smaller. We looked at the stones for a while, speculated on what kinds of lives the married couple occupying them might have had spanning the 18th and early 19th century living there on a farm, and left.

Later on I was walking near a maintenance shed that was near the program areas of the camp, but out of the way. While hiking along I stumbled in a rocky area. They were a bunch of sharp rocks embedded in the ground. I'd been walking around without noting them, as it was a rocky area. But my fall caused me to look at them closely. I found a number of them that had names and 18th century dates scratched in them, not too legibly, but there. I asked the caretaker about them. These would be the graves of early inhabitants. I asked him, "Why aren't they being taken care of?" "The families died out long ago," he told me. Still didn't seem right.

It is a shame. One would think that caring for that 'forgotten' group of graves would be high on the scouting list. A day's hike, do a good deed, show respect, and learn what life was like back then. If nothing else, earn a badge. Perhaps you could encourage the scout camp or get your local den to campaign for something to be done.