A Few Finds of a Different Kind

[U.P. Northwoods]

Well been working for the Water Co. for 30+ years now and thought I would drop a tale or two about a couple of past digs that required no metal detecting. Yes, you can guess that in my line of work I have been in my fair share of holes.
The first instance happened close to 30 years ago when we were digging up a shut off by hand. We just had the good fortune of not have a rig to dig for us that day.
We had gotten down about 6' ft. when I hit something harder than heck in the bottom of the hole. I told the foreman he better take a look at this. Well I dug about 6 more inches and noticed how flat it was. Took the rag out of my pocket and started brushing the dirt away when I saw lettering. Born March 15 1822 /Died July20 1867. Had the name too but don't recall for some reason?
Well , you betcha, being the young buck I was at that time I don't even think I touched the sides of the banks in the hole. I just leapt straight up and out. The foreman? Ya, he ran about to doors down the street. After calming down a bit and trying to figure what to do and old man across the street came over to chat. Told him to take a look in the hole. He too of course was surprised but did have an explanation. We were digging where at one time there was a major monument/stone maker for central Il. and that the headstone was probably a faux pas and discarded. Well upon closer evaluation I could not determine a mistake. The stone stayed right there. We finished our job and were happy to get it back filled. That was done of course much faster than throwing it out.

The second occurrence happened not long after the first. I was on a heavy maintenence crew and involved in replacing a 16" valve in a very old section of Peoria. Well I knew some of the history of where we were digging. It was the first large cemetary in town at one time. Currently a branch of the Peoria Library sits on this land. When Springdale Cemetary (largest in down state IL) was opened here all the graves were moved from where the library now sits.
One of the unfortunate things too was people were removing headstones back then before the remains were and used the headstones for sidewalks in their backyrds and floor for their dirt basements. Yes, there are still a few of these homes standing too and the headstones are still there.
So, to this day there are some unfortunate folks buried there. The cemetary was much larger than what it look like today and encompassed most of the surrounding streets. Well, we were digging away and the backhoe was load out the dumptruck. Myself and another fella were picking up what ever sluffed off the hoe and throwing it in the truck by hand. Well my partner scooped up a big clump of dirt and it rolled off the end of his shovel and broke up. Low and behold there layed a skull on the pavement. No one said a word, everone was just shocked. I was working for the same foreman at the time and he called the police. This shut the job down and they brought the crime tape out. The cops said why didn't we just throw it on the truck. Yes they were serious.
The skull along with a couple of other bones were sent to Springfield and we were told it was from a male about 20 years old that died of blunt trauma to his head and died in the 1850's. Not much of a treasure but memorable experiences at work.

 

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[Lowbatts]

Yep, old cemetary stories abound, got a few bones in my time but no skulls. I can wait on that one...

A local contractor told me he was involved in building an addition on to a school in what was a graveyard, said they think they got six or so corpses out of the ground during that job, didn't want to go through the whole investigation bit so off they went to become backfill, at another school's front yard.

You spend more time in Peoria or the UP? Mayo sent me an interesting article about a high school being reworked down that way this summer, the article was about the md'ers hitting the playing field and some of their finds. Not sure if it was from Pekin or Peoria though.

 

[kimsdad]

Great story! I'd be up & outta that hole like lightning, too!

 

[U.P. Northwoods]

Hey Lowbatts,
No I'm here in Peoria most the time. This is where I make my living. About 4 1/2 more years and the wife and I will retire and head north. We'll be headed home for 3 weeks in Oct. and I plan to meet up with a couple of other guys in between deer hunting and go MDing. We do have a few old homesteads right close to our home. I'm close to a few mines beaches etc. Our place is about 15 miles east of Mass City if you have any idea where that is.
May be Pekin your talking about. I have heard nothing like that here in cowtown. They were suppose to build a new grade school and tear a bunch of homes down here but nothing has developed. The way I get around town here with my work I'm always looking.