A question of ethics - old abandoned graveyards

[DeepseekerADS]

I'm aware of a long abandoned graveyard, dating probably back to the early 1800's. There are as many as 50 grave sites featuring only ground stones as markers. Many of these are probably relatives of my family.

As a person of faith and ethics, I'm not a grave robber.

But then this is so very tempting.

Any thoughts on this?

 

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[Nitric]

https://www.southernliving.com/news/savannah-airport-graves

I can't sleep either.....I just thought of something that I saw a while back and thought I'd throw it in here for you. haha I do believe that building a runway over graves crosses the line. They couldn't move it a few feet over? haha

 

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[DeepseekerADS]

I guess as time passes = just how much land can we dedicate to our dead before there's no land left for the living?

Interesting question

 

[Nitric]

I guess as time passes = just how much land can we dedicate to our dead before there's no land left for the living?

Interesting question

Your right, when you really think about it....I bet we have buildings, have driven over, walked over graves that we didn't even know about.

Like your question....I remember going with my step dad a couple of times to fix up a family grave yard. The riding mowers would leave ruts, we would knock them down with shovels, dump dirt in them then replant grass. Anyone driving past wouldn't have thought twice. BUT!!! Take a detector and a screw driver in there and I'l bet someone would call the sheriff within minutes. ANd it wouldn't have even been anyone that
their family was buried in there.

And like your mentioning...My dad and I have walked through woods and stumbled into old family lots that haven't been seen or even cared for in years. In the middle of no where.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

And like your mentioning...My dad and I have walked through woods and stumbled into old family lots that haven't been seen or even cared for in years. In the middle of no where.

Good gracious! According to the "experts", humans first crossed from Asia about 18,000 years ago.

Do we watch our step or not?

 

[namxat]

Anthrax too!

Thats why I never go on an old knacker House&yard place, even though these people were often wealthy.


As for the graveyard: This is hallowed ground. I do not care which denomination and if these were good or bad people, it is hallowed ground. The taboo against disturbing gravesides is almost universal.
I do not disturb the dead and the dead do not disturb me. I leave nothing on the graveyard besides flowers and I take nothing away from it. I do not respect people that do otherwise.

I does not matter that some of the burried are likley relatives. You do not have a right on them. You have no right to abuse your living family and you have no right abuse your ead.

Sorry to put I so hard, there is no offense meant and it is not personal meant! But sometimes I learned from life you have to say No, I am against this very clear.


Greets Namxat

 

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

I researched and found an abandoned church foundation in the woods with small adjacent graveyard. Maybe 18 sunken graves with simple stone markers. It is one of the coolest sites I’ve found. Searched around the church foundation and what seemed like logical gathering areas and found some cool relics, but I passed on the actual grave area. Partly because the sunken grave areas did not look super stable. I was imagining falling through turf into a 6’ deep coffin with remains. Was not feeling Indiana Jones. Also, just didn’t feel right to me. Sort of like hunting on private property. Any coins on these graves were placed there intentionally, not to be dug up and removed.

 

[Mackaydon]

Initially, you'd be tresspassing.
Would approval from the owner make the decision any easier?
Don........

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Initially, you'd be tresspassing.
Would approval from the owner make the decision any easier?
Don........

The land around me is all owned by a lumber company - they're waiting for me to die so they can get mine too!

Good people, probably related if we go back in time, and I have permission on all of their land, maybe thousands of acres. Back in the days of WWI there were all kinds of people living back up the holler behind me, but the wars brought those people out and they never went back as the family elders passed away. My driveway was actually a county road a hundred years ago.

Edit: When I'm at the head of my driveway and I look towards the ridge where the graveyard is, I can see the original road, now long abandoned on that hillside.


1930's picture of my ancestral home from up the holler - that chimney is still standing


Down the road looking at my house from my kilometer long driveway


Google maps of my farm in center bottom of the picture.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

And me as a child held by Aunt Marie, with Granny behind me, and the 2nd house on the property behind me - 1949:

 

[Escape]

I dug in a graveyard I came across in the woods a few years ago. Had about 5 or 6 small markers. Most of them broken. Didn't find much. Some lead as I recall. There use to be a mansion on the property. This was were they buried their horses. Now part of the NYC Parks system.

 

[releventchair]

I'm aware of a long abandoned graveyard, dating probably back to the early 1800's. There are as many as 50 grave sites featuring only ground stones as markers. Many of these are probably relatives of my family.

As a person of faith and ethics, I'm not a grave robber.

But then this is so very tempting.

Any thoughts on this?

Deep ,you instigator you!
Nope. No detecting graves.
Besides ,these are your relatives. None of them were rich enough to leave a coin!

But seriously....Where would the wakes for those folks have been held?
Many hours at the homesteads main house or cabin during a wake. (The building being used at the given time and location....)
Visits before and after too.
Parking for buckboards and wagons and horses and later gas powered vehicles ,and remember ;backing with horses hitched was not a thing anyone wanted to do. And...Some wheel fasteners it was better to not back up/run reversed to avoid loosening wheel nuts. That means room to park allowing a big turn. And room for multiple outfits to do the same.

The outhouse and it's path would have been busy during such times. Likely moved afterwards if it was a big crowd. (Or eventually anyways.) Water source too, from watering stock ,or a place to go just to get out of the house a while.
Shade in summer. Woodpile in winter. (You want to help a family ,split some wood,l.o.l..or at least fetch some.)Though most burials were not when ground was frozen very deep ,unless a heck of a fire was burned on the grave site a while.

Parking areas throughout the history of the site should have evidence in drops mounting , and dismounting and stuff kicked off floorboards.
Pic-nic type site should exist nearby too. A crowd needed accommodation somewhere , even if briefly.
Why go back to the homestead right away after being there for days with a death the focus? Visitors could eat and wrap up condolences ect . and leave from there while family and close friends could eventually wander back to the likely small homestead after.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Nope! Ain't hitting the graves!

Good Lord, looking at the pics I must be 100 years old

 

[xr7ator]

I did one up in the hills that I found that had not been maintained in forever. Maybe 20 graves. This was way back in the late 80's or early nineties. I didn't swing over the graves, I didn't leave it in worse shape than I found it, but I found a wheat penny in the isle way. It wasn't productive but it was the only old coin I found up thar in them there hills that day. I have no regrets, well, except that the wheatie wasn't a merc...

 

[DeepseekerADS]

I'll both Respect and Expect

Won't do no grave digging, but just maybe find a wheat, or Indian Head in the areas outside the burials.

Silver? These people around here back then lived on trading... I was with Granny taking cartons of fresh laid eggs to the local store trading for coffee and sugar.

 

[Ogre1190]

One word: "Poltergeist". 😱

 

[DeepseekerADS]

One word: "Poltergeist". ��

Yeah! Don't need nothing following me home!

 

[Truth]

If it’s covered with debris and no one has kept up with it in years and it can’t be seen by the public I might, but it would be a internal struggle for me. But then again it could be a major gold wedding ring day.

 

[Truth]

It's been a subject debated for ages with good arguments on both sides. Take the people who have excavated various tombs around the world, including King Tut......archies or grave robbers? And we aren't even talking about digging up somebodies remains.....just surface finds from visitors. Unless it's forbidden at a particular site, I see it as a personal choice. I respect that decision either way.

Ditto

 

[RustyGold]

Awesome thread Deep. Sometimes it truly is what you leave and not what you take. Best of luck!

 

[Hillbilly Prince]

Hillbilly.. If your question is for me...My family, friends and kin always left pennies when visiting any graves.. my gGrandparents, Grandparents, Aunts,Uncles and Parents all did that except on Holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Easter and Christmas and then at all the graves everyone that visited a grave left a quarter...after the holidays, the cemetery caretaker would collect all the coins and they went into the cemetery fund for expenses. The pennies stayed usually til they just got to be too much and then they were collected too. I've seen some stones where people leave a rock, usually kind of heart shape-ish or round. Just as a memorial and to show they were there.

I'm speaking about the family and country cemeteries mainly..although my folks always left a penny at any grave they visited.

I have a long unused cemetery like Deep is talking about on my property...Right in the middle of the woods. There used to be a Church there and when it was moved a new cemetery was established next to it leaving this one only used by surviving spouses of folks already buried there. I don't think there's been any burials there since the late 1800's. I just maintain it since most everyone is ancestors and I hate to see cemeteries neglected or forgotten. Scouts come once a year for a big clean up.

If your interested, you might look up the meanings of different denominations of coins left on veteran's markers and see what they signify especially if left by a fellow soldier.

What part of SWMO are you in?

Kace

I'm in Barry county about a half hour from the Arkansas line. My Mom was from Arkansas and all my aunts and uncles were old time Ozark people.
The idea of putting coins on graves is new to me but then again my relatives came up during the depression and were poor as church mice, as Mom used to say. Might be they had no coins to put on a grave.
My Dad used to say of a no-account person,"They would steal the coppers off a dead man's eyes." Referring to the old practice of putting coins on a deceased person's eyes to keep the lids closed. He was born in Texas but was dragged all over in a wagon. Eventually wound up in Missouri long enough to marry.
So maybe the copper reference did not come from here, but that is the only thing I remember regarding death and coins.
I will look that up -three of my brothers were vets, and my uncle lost his eye in WWII.