Wrightdigger
Member
We lived in this small town in rural Ohio for 30 years. I found a few old bottles in the crawl space and collected a few insulators at garage sales. That was about it because I was pretty focused on raising my daughter and son. When we became empty nesters, we started looking for a piece of property to build on. This took several years. One day we were driving home from church and I looked over at this property and said," That would be a cool piece of property to have." It wasn't but a few days later that my husband got a call from a realtor that he hadn't spoke to in a year. He wanted to know if we were still looking for property. Don't you know it was the same land! So we bought forty acres of it. Our best friends eventually bought 10 acres that run along our forty acres. So we hunt all 50 of it together. So far my friends have found 2 NA artifacts on their 10: a small point and a maul. My 40 is the producer of bottles. I have a creek that runs by the driveway that almost every spring a bottle shows up. We found a foundation up the hill from that area and assume this was a dumpsite and/or everything just fell down to the creek. Then I have another creek that I have also found bottles. There is the remnants of an old road and the stones from a bridge that used to cross a creek. We have several creeks to stomp through. We were told that the drainage tile would have been put in the 40's or 50's. But my husband says the ravines and creeks would have naturally been there first. So lots of hunting ground.
The farm also has an abandoned cemetery. Here is the history I have found out about the farm from doing research on the cemetery:
We purchased 40 acres of an original 80 acre tract. At some point it was combined with another 83 acres to become 163. I have not made that connection yet. The original owner, George, had a few parcels of land. This particular 80 acres was bought in 1832. His brother, Robert, owned a tract of land across the street and next to George's other tract. George was a minister of the Brethren in Christ Church. The church was located on Robert's farm and George set aside this plot on his farm for a church cemetery. Over time the church relocated to a nearby town and then became a different denomination. At some point the cemetery was handed over to the township to take care of. But the various landowners actually own the cemetery. When the township decided there were no living local relations, they turned the care back to the owner. That's why it's considered abandoned. When we purchased the 40 acres, it was very overgrown. Our lawyer said we could do anything (or nothing) we wanted, including dozing it and building our house there. Although, he didn't recommend it. We were like, "No way! They made a movie about that sort of thing and we're not going there!" He laughed. So, it's my job to take care of it.
The first known grave is 1855. The last was 1900. The youngest was a baby girl, one day. The oldest was a lady that lived 90y 11m 28d. There are 41 tombstones.
I have lots of pics so this may take a few posts.
[attachment 357260 cemetery1.jpg] [attachment 357261 cemetery2.jpg] [attachment 357262 cemetery3.jpg] [attachment 357263 cemetery4.jpg] [attachment 357264 cemetery14.jpg] [attachment 357265 cemetery15.jpg]
This last one has had the "recently been buried" look since before we bought the property. I don't know why the grass won't grow there. That is a foot stone for the grave in front of it.
The farm also has an abandoned cemetery. Here is the history I have found out about the farm from doing research on the cemetery:
We purchased 40 acres of an original 80 acre tract. At some point it was combined with another 83 acres to become 163. I have not made that connection yet. The original owner, George, had a few parcels of land. This particular 80 acres was bought in 1832. His brother, Robert, owned a tract of land across the street and next to George's other tract. George was a minister of the Brethren in Christ Church. The church was located on Robert's farm and George set aside this plot on his farm for a church cemetery. Over time the church relocated to a nearby town and then became a different denomination. At some point the cemetery was handed over to the township to take care of. But the various landowners actually own the cemetery. When the township decided there were no living local relations, they turned the care back to the owner. That's why it's considered abandoned. When we purchased the 40 acres, it was very overgrown. Our lawyer said we could do anything (or nothing) we wanted, including dozing it and building our house there. Although, he didn't recommend it. We were like, "No way! They made a movie about that sort of thing and we're not going there!" He laughed. So, it's my job to take care of it.
The first known grave is 1855. The last was 1900. The youngest was a baby girl, one day. The oldest was a lady that lived 90y 11m 28d. There are 41 tombstones.
I have lots of pics so this may take a few posts.
[attachment 357260 cemetery1.jpg] [attachment 357261 cemetery2.jpg] [attachment 357262 cemetery3.jpg] [attachment 357263 cemetery4.jpg] [attachment 357264 cemetery14.jpg] [attachment 357265 cemetery15.jpg]
This last one has had the "recently been buried" look since before we bought the property. I don't know why the grass won't grow there. That is a foot stone for the grave in front of it.
My grandson was not amused. He ditched me and went back to the house and to fishing. On the way back I kept swinging and did manage to find a 
. I put the Delta up and didn't touch it again until last year when someone encouraged me to get back out there. Um, I don't wear my steel toe boots anymore! 
