Cemeteries....
When I was a kid, we would go 4x4ing and camping on logging roads in the NE GA mountains. I don't think you can do this anymore since the roads are all blocked off now.
Found a little cemetery on the side of the trail where the coffins had collapsed and the ground had sunk as a result. Most of the graves did not have head stones so they most have had wood which was long gone. There was one grave with a nice granite headstone that said the person died in the late 20's if I remember right. This was in the 70's so that grave was 50 years old. Who knows the age of the other graves...
The US Army would have large training exercises in the mountains and we used to camp in what had to be a company perimeter. There were fox holes dug in an oval shape in an area next to a nice creek. They had sorta cleared out the interior of the perimeter for some reason and there was a huge mound of sawdust for us kids to climb on. For some reason there we lots of 308 brass in the sawdust that we would dig out to keep. At a nearby "intersection" there was a 120mm motor just left in the field. :confused3: Twas there for years.:confused3:
Was out on a canoeing trip at the end of October one year with a group of people. We camped on some land which we had permission. There was a dirt/sand road next to the where we camped in a bend in the river. After setting up camp people went exploring to stretch their legs from being in a canoe all day and a couple came back to say they had found a graveyard. Pretty sure it was Halloween and there was a full moon to boot. :shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing: We sat around a fire eating and shooting the bull until about midnight when it seemed to be a good idea to go visit the graveyard in the woods. :laughing::laughing::laughing: So off we went at midnight, on Halloween under a full moon to find the graveyard. :confused3::shocked:
The graveyard was just off the road, and marked with a road sign believe it or not, even though this was a private road and gated to prevent access. The graveyard had a cinder block wall and a nice metal gate. Inside there was a large, maybe 6 feet tall monument to a couple who would have been in their 20's when Sherman came to visit. You tell they had money because of the wall, gate, and monument but you could also see that the following generations had less and less money. The headstones got smaller and smaller with less ornamentation as the generations passed until the youngest graves just had metal paupers markers.
When looking for land we found two places that had cemeteries on the property. One was very substantial and unfortunately was in a prime spot on the land. The head stones were heart breaking. Many, many, many babies and kids. Many graves where the babies only lived days or weeks.
Lots of teenagers and young adults. Very few "old" people. The other place had very old graves. Graves from the early 1700s and the headstones were locally found sandstone that they could barely etch letters and numbers. The writer was also barely literate. To be buried in that place in the early 1700s meant the people were living in the "wild west" of the time. Twas nothing out there at that time. What ticked us off was that the neighbor was running cattle and he had a useless fence which allowed the bovines into the cemetery where they knocked over the gravestones.
Later,
Dan
