Posted on 10/30/2018 6:47:22 PM PDT by vannrox
When I lived in Indiana, one of the things that I did was to visit every park in the state. I went and bought a book showing all 25 state parks. Then, my wife and I went and visited every one of them. When we were finished, we then went to the local library. We looked at a large map of the county and then visited every cemetery in the county.
It was an “eye opener” and very informative. Let’s talk about this experience
Many of the cemeteries were in isolated areas. We would get to ride on little used back roads that trundled through the rows of soybeans or corn. Then the road would dead end into a tiny space of greenery that typically consisted of some rare trees, a stream or two and some small out-buildings. The park would be lonely and often deserted.
While the grass would be tended to, it was mostly a three week to a one month mowing cycle and tended to be rather lush. There wasn’t any kind of landscaping, or care for the weeds and plants that existed besides the tombstones. The headstones themselves were often old, tilted and leaning at precarious angles.
We would walk into the park and explore the headstones. Many dated over a hundred years ago. Obviously the settlers had a hard life. People died early. Many died before they hit their mid thirties. Many families had nearby rows of tombstones with the names of children that wouldn’t live past three or four years of age. It was sad.
Sometimes we would find a family that would have maybe twelve or thirteen children’s graves. Each
(Excerpt) Read more at metallicman.com ...
Thanks for posting, I am from Indiana and on my last trip there visited a cemetery where some relatives are buried. I was surprised to see headstones dating back to the Revolutionary war.
Note the dates on the headstones.Scary how many people died from the flu epidemic.
A closer look showed that we were riding through Franklin's cemetery. The forest had completely overgrown the graveyard, leaving little lumps of headstone sitting by trees. The names on the stones were Italian, and a huge number of them died in 1910 from cholera. It must have been a hard life.
It is not cared for.
Bookmark.
The link broght me some “Congratulations” pop-ups. Hate it when that happens.
In 1775 the American Revolutionary War began as the colonists sought more self-government and independence from the British. The majority of the fighting took place near the East Coast, but the Patriot military officer George Rogers Clark called for an army to help fight the British in the west.[17] Clark's army won significant battles and took over Vincennes and Fort Sackville on February 25, 1779.[18] During the war, Clark managed to cut off British troops, who were attacking the eastern colonists from the west. His success is often credited for changing the course of the American Revolutionary War.[19] At the end of the war, through the Treaty of Paris, the British crown ceded their claims to the land south of the Great Lakes to the newly formed United States, including American Indian lands.
Not a single one of them had the slightest inkling of FReeper life. They may have been more content than we. Who knows?
Several cemeteries near me have multiple little headstones for the small children that died within just a 2-3 year timespan.
Things were brutal here during the early years of the settlements.
The natives that lived here migrated back and forth to higher ground every year, since so much of this area was underwater in the mid 1800’s.
Prime farmground though, once drained.
Many of the cemeteries were in isolated areas....The park would be lonely and often deserted.
I might be interested in doing something similar it AL and TN.
You received pop ups? Seriously. That should not have happened. Please message me privately with some info so that I can prevent it from happening. The only advertisements on the site is via google.
Ah. No connection. Between state parks and cemeteries. You first visit the state parks. Then after you visited all of them, what then?
So you find a map and explore other things. Maybe a rock quarry, or old mines. In this example yo can go and visit cemeteries.
Okay, got it — thanks.
Bttt
Here is an explanation of the tree-stump headstones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoodmenLife
It is related to a fraternal organization.
Great Black Swamp?
Maybe because posted link in FB.
One could write a book about visiting cemeteries. (My sister-in-law’s husband had a best seller about famous DC cemeteries - tombstones).
It should be entitled “I See Dead People - II”. Introduction by Haley Joel Osmont. /sarc
A bit late but happened to see this thread.
Graveyard fan here. 20 years Membership Chairman of Coalition to Protect Maryland Burial Sites.
Visited a lot personally in CT as well as here in MD.
They are a real connection to the past. The actual people are there, and you can get a sense of the background of the area...who the families were, why streets are named so, etc.
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