"Oh, Fudge!"
Only he didn't say 'Fudge'. And neither did I.
Ok, so some explanation is warranted.
But first, some exposition to set up the explanation!
Anyone who has stomped and tromped around a cemetery or fifty starts learning patterns. Not so much in burials, but in the cemeteries and graveyards themselves. Locations, styles of markers, etc. become more and more apparent over time and with more experience.
Now those patterns are highly dependent on what area of the country one is in. In the South and more rural locations in the heartland the pattern is for more family cemeteries and church graveyards and less city or community cemeteries until more into the mid to late 20th century. This means a plethora of little cemeteries all over the place, often in places that today seem bizarre. Like say industrial parks.
Family farms get sold off and the family dies off or moves away. The church moves or folds. Either way the graves are all but abandoned. I daresay this is hardly a great revelation to anyone reading this silliness.
Enough with the exposition and on with the explanation.
Not too far from Br'er's warren, in the midst of an industrial development, hidden beneath a canopy of trees and well shielded by bushes rests a cemetery. Or graveyard. There remains some debate on that point. It was definitely used for church burials at some point, but it also seems to have graves predating the church. So was it a family cemetery that became a church graveyard? The world may never know!
Br'er and Mrs Br'er had visited this cemetery before. You can follow that link for all those details. No need to rehash them here.
The reason we were back is to scratch a mental itch I had been experiencing for some time. You see, there are several broken headstones there. Some retain a little of the inscriptions, others have only a base that once held a marker. Often these fragments and markers are simply laying flat and have become covered with the detritus and duff (Yes, those are real words and properly used in context here - I love when I can flex my vocabulary!). Ever since Br'er Poppa gifted me with a ground probe I have looked for opportunities to use it.
This is a perfect opportunity.
So it was that we had stopped by this location recently after having done some headstone cleaning for Mrs. Br'er's ancestors and relatives elsewhere. I wanted to make a quick check to see if the probe could detect anything in the area immediately around the broken and missing stones.
There are two small bases side by side that are both missing the headstone itself. These are almost certainly children's graves given the size. And there is nothing about their names or dates recorded anywhere associated with the headstones. If I could find the buried bits and fix names to the graves, it would be a big-ish thing.
When you use a probe like this you are going to get a few different results.
Firstly, either you hit solid ground (the probe will only sink a couple of inches or so) or it will relatively easily sink deep into the ground. The later indicates earth that has been disturbed several feet down meaning a probable grave. (More on this later!)
Secondly, if the probe sinks any depth at all, either you hit something or you don't. If you make some kind of contact it is critical that you pay very close attention to what you hear and feel through the probe. A dull 'thud' is most likely a root or buried piece of wood, and is of little or no interest. Those feel soft in comparison to other contacts. Stone or metal, on the other hand, make a high pitched 'tink' and are far more dense. These are of much interest.
On out little stop in to test with the probe I hit clear and obvious stone about two inches down and immediately in front of the headstone base! Woot! I removed some dirt. Just enough to confirm stone.
Well this afternoon we returned again. This time with all the necessary tools to correctly (i.e. without damage) excavate whatever was buried there. Could it be the missing headstone? Might I have found names and dates that everyone had missed in all the previous years?
Mosquitos be damned! This is important and inquiring minds want to know!
If you haven't gotten there yet based on the title, it was just a fecking rock. Granted it was of a size and shape that could well have been a fieldstone marker for a neighboring grave. But there was not the slightest hint of any carving on it.
Fudge!
Or as Charlie Brown might say, "I got a rock."
I returned the rock to its original spot and orientation. The only change left was the disturbed dirt and roots. The rocks on the marker base came from the excavation. I set them aside and examined them closely in case they were broken fragments that could be pieced back together. Alas! They were but rocks. No evidence whatsoever of having been worked by human hands.
I spoke earlier about the ground probe. It is about 48 inches (four feet) long in total. Here it is in a sunken area in front of a field stone marker - a probable grave. It is only in an inch or so. Just enough to keep it standing by itself while I take the photo.
Yeah. I feel pretty safe saying this is a grave. Had the ground not been disturbed so deeply then the probe would have been virtually impossible to sink that deep. You do need to check the surrounding area - preferably using a fixed grid - to determine the full extent of the disturbed ground. This will help you confirm that what you have hit is not, say a rotted tree stump, and is the size and shape of a grave (adult or child).
Not my mental itch is scratched if not satisfied. There are no missing fragments waiting to be unearthed.
Dammit!
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