Connecting Past to Present in a Pioneer Cemetery

Jessi, making rubbings that helped to establish identity and dates.

My cousin Stephanie, her husband Dave, and my daughter Jessi recently went trekking to a grown-over pioneer cemetery. No road access meant we had a 3/4 mile trek through a soybean field up a knoll to the 2-acre enclosed cemetery. Not only was it fenced in, but totally surrounded by briars and thorny honey locust trees, like something out of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty.

Stephanie and Dave, capturing this moment in time. Me, capturing them.

Dave, unearthing a forgotten headstone.

I had wanted to find this place ever since I heard about it several years ago. The cemetery had been shrouded in mystery but would hold clues from our past that would give us a keener understanding of our ancestors' lives, and it was situated on the very land where they lived!

Some headstones were small but ornate.

Some of the monuments toppled from their own weight and the ravages of time and weather.

Some had writing that was still  somewhat legible.

This crag of a tree speaks to the long-forgotten area.

Around thirty of our ancestors found their final resting places there, where now it appears to be an abandoned flower garden, overgrown with Solomon's Seal, Wild Columbine, Day Lilies, Violets, and Nettles. More flowers, but I've forgotten them. Our focus was on finding downed headstones and monuments, covered over with moss, lichens and dirt, and then connecting that person with our lives, our family tree. 

Solomon's Seal was prevalent and, I thought, fitting since this was on the original 400 acre land grant that my great great grandfather Solomon Salmon received after his Revolutionary War service. I know, there should be 6 or 7 greats before "grandfather" but our family tended to have children later in their lives!