Allen's Creek: 8 Cemeteries in One

The Eight Cemeteries

Allen’s Creek Cemetery (Monroe County, Indiana) is a really neat little place. Actually, it is made up of eight cemeteries that were relocated from the 10,750 acres that Lake Monroe now occupies. According to a sign located in the cemetery itself, when construction on Lake Monroe began 1962, “all houses, barns, fence lines, power lines, trees and eight cemeteries were cleared or moved.” Sexton Wilbert of Bloomington saw to this relocation, which was completed in 1965. These eight cemeteries were Blackwell Cemetery, Cutright Cemetery, Daniel Fox Cemetery, Goodman Cemetery, Hughes Cemetery, Mary W. Malott Cemetery, Mitchell Cemetery, and Shields Cemetery.

We visited in November of 2010 on a very warm and sunny day. This was about two months before everything in the world fell apart and we still thought it was safe to drive aimlessly around the way we do in Ohio looking for boneyards.

View from the front

Some work had recently been done, we could see as soon as we drove up. The stairs and walkways were pretty recently poured and kind of stuck out oddly against the otherwise highly natural and haphazard arrangement of the place. The two cement blocks have the plaques on them that I quoted earlier–on the left, the 23 Psalm, and on the right, the list of cemeteries and story about how they got here.

Stones on the Hill

The cemeteries were unidentified but kept separate, with pretty clear wide aisles between each cluster. The eight individual cemeteries mainly seemed to be small family clusters; this picture shows one of them as well as the surrounding woods.

The Unusual Headstone of Lonzo Eads

And naturally in any case where you have more than one cemetery occupying a single area, there is bound to be more than the usual individuality displayed. This stone for Lonzo Eads is a somewhat creepy specimen if you ask me–homemade-type grave stones are always a little peculiarly creepy in their own unique way.

There were lots of these

Frankly, I just like this picture! This was a really brilliant idea. Of course when they dug up the cemeteries and relocated them, they discovered lots of graves that had been hitherto unmarked. Unable to identify whose remains they were but desiring to mark them anyway, they got these generic-type stones that say simply “UNKNOWN” with numbers. These were pretty much everywhere.

Sometimes headstones are inadvertantly funny

I just threw this one in because . . . well, come on! How did no one see this at the time?

A tree behind a tree

When I first came up to this one, I thought that it was an actual tree stump hiding behind a tree. Then I approached and realized it was a tombstone. A tombstone with a giant spider on it, actually.

Some stones in the ground

When stones can’t be repaired, it’s common to embed them like flat markers. The chief downside is they erode even quicker and get overgrown rapidly, but it does tend to preserve the stone if it’s otherwise cared for. This is a particularly legible example.

Another interesting one

This is just another one with some personality. Sarrah here was the wife of George Pate, a Civil War vet; they had married on May 5, 1856, in Bloomington, IN. He died nine months before she did, and I don’t remember seeing his grave there, but interestingly she received his pension of $8 each month there until her death.

A faded one on the hillside

Like I said, a lot of variety and history in a cemetery like this, where old and new mingle. Very new-fashioned stones were situated a few feet from very old ones like this, where most of the inscription has been eroded away by the harsh Indiana weather. I think the cemetery caretakers do a really good job of keeping the place neat, tidy, and in as good a shape as possible, and given that this is the kind of project nobody wants to embark on, the relocation of these cemeteries was handled pretty well.

As usual, see the rest of the pictures (here)!

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,400 times in 2010. That’s about 8 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 15 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 49 posts. There were 72 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 125mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was January 6th with 172 views. The most popular post that day was Meet the living.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were graveaddiction.com, forgottenoh.com, k8nd.com, facebook.com, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for tico cemetery, andrew hellman, tico ohio, hell house urbana ohio, and piatt castles.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Meet the living December 2008

The View from Donn Piatt’s Tomb October 2009
2 comments

The Greatest Criminal Ever to Perpretrate Murder January 2009
3 comments

Son of Hatchetman October 2009

Knock-Knock-Knocking on Hayden’s Door December 2008
1 comment

Little Mount Cemetery

This is a tale that began over a month ago when we purchased a book about southern Indiana hauntings from our local Barnes & Noble because it actually included things in our new home area. Having noticed a serious lack of information about cemeteries/hauntings in this state (oh, Ohio, we love you now) and especially this area, we eagerly snapped it up. If it weren’t in the car or we had better memories, I could even tell you the name! Either way, reading through it over the course of the next couple weeks we finally came to a story about “Cemetery X” and a supposedly haunted gravestone of a Civil War soldier. The author listed several other things that she and her group believed they experienced, and after reading we were more than a little curious. Searches for “Cemetery X” quickly revealed that we were in fact correct in assuming that was a fake name. With a little, very non-descrip information, we spent over an hour searching before correctly guessing the name on a blurry photo of a gravestone in the book.

James R. Mannan

Even once we had that, it was still more searching to actually find the soldier since his name is not in the findagrave.com listings. But never fail, you’re future librarians prevailed and we stumbled upon information about James R. Mannan (whose last name, I would note, was misspelled in the only caption offering specific information). It turns out he was a private who died while at Camp Hughes, a Civil War training camp near Gosport, Indiana.  He entered the service Oct. 8, 1861, and died Feb. 10, 1862, of Pneumonia, just days before the company shipped out.

But this isn’t even where the story ends! Nope. After our triumphant hour of research at 1 a.m., we were really excited to go but had class and then I was heading home to Ohio for my birthday. When I got back, we had more projects due so we finally decided to go Oct. 14. Well, something didn’t want us going because I had the most random run in with a jar of salsa at our local WalMart and cut my foot, so it pretty instantly killed any plans for the next two weeks. Finally last Thursday I was up and able enough for us to hit up this spot on our way to Indianapolis to take in the awesomeness that was RiffTrax Live: House on Haunted Hill.

It was well worth the wait too! While nothing paranormal took place (not that we were expecting anything…), it was pretty cool and out of the way. Some stones were in remarkable condition, but others were broken in half or knocked over. There was a lot of plant growth, and I can only imagine what it would look like in the summer when everything is full. Many stones had vines on them, which looked beautiful, but were a sad reminder of how little care the grounds receive.

If you’re ever in the Owen County area, I would encourage you to check it out. If you take 475 N/E out of Gosport, you’ll encounter the cemetery about two months north of the town on the west side of the road. The roads back there can be tricky to navigate, but the cemetery is obvious. There is another burial ground in the area (it seems to share a name), but the larger of the two is the one we visited. Also make sure to check out our photo page for all the photos from our trip!

Mt. Gilead Cemetery

I would say all of these stones are in great condition, and there are some older ones well worth the viewing.

Father & Mother

For example, there’s this incredibly unique castle-shaped one. When we first saw it from the back, we thought it was probably a child’s grave (a la Concord Cem. in Columbus–um, I’ll post that one soon! Promise!) . . . but we were wrong. I personally don’t consider it pretty but it is fascinating in its own way.

Another interesting thing about this cemetery–which is adjacent to a church–is that they are providing headstones for unmarked plots rather in the way our Headstoners for Headstones project would like to. However, they appear not to have any records concerning these plots because all the new headstones are the same:

Unknown?

There are at least a dozen of these and possibly more spread around the cemetery, but the largest block are closest to the church itself.

One of my favorite parts of unwitting cemetery humor is coming across “celebrities by mistake” headstones (like this time I found a Harrison Ford stone at Green Lawn. Maybe I’ll share that one eventually too!) . . . Mt. Gilead produced this particular humor gem:

Really?!

Sleepy Hollow is Concord’s biggest. Not only does it already claim some 10,000 burials, but it is still active. It was designed in 1855 by Cleveland and Copeland, and Ralph Waldo Emerson actually gave the dedication speech on September 29 of that year. He would eventually be buried there himself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's Grave

Sleepy Hollow is notable also as the resting place of nearly 30 famous individuals, among them some of the US’s most noted writers and thinkers. Their congregation is referred to as “Author’s Ridge.” Apart from Ralph Waldo Emerson, some other especially notable figures whose graves we saw there were . . .

The Alcott Plot

Louisa May Alcott's Grave

Nathaniel Hawthorn's Grave

The Thoreau Plot

Allow me to point out that not only is that not me in the picture–it’s my older sister Kari–but being the nine-year-old headstoner I was, I was less interested in the famous dead people than I was in the cemetery in general. Also, I was not in charge of the camera, or we might see a very different view of this cemetery. To this day, the New England transcendentalists are not anywhere near being my favorite writers and thinkers of all time, but Sleepy Hollow is a gorgeous cemetery nonetheless.

Actually what I would like to draw attention to this week is something that came to my attention in the last week of June and I ended up having to put it off for the Fourth of July post. In October, I posted about the Piatt Cemetery in Logan Co., which as I mentioned then, I visit all the time. This post attracted the attention of Jeff, who is engaged in a really fascinating quest that, as a Headstoner, I was pleased to get in on, and felt it was my duty to share with everybody.

Jeff has in his possession a headstone, a homeless headstone, if you will, and rather than simply dropping it off at the local graveyard or hanging onto it, he has been trying to figure out where it came from so he can return it. The headstone is a sort of tapering shape and matches others already in the cemetery (although to be fair, it’s a common enough shape for the time) . . . Click here for a slideshow of Piatt cemetery shots from the last three years.

Anyway, the stone lists the names of six Piatt(e) children; their parents are identified as “R.J. and Anna.” Abram–the builder of Mac-A-Cheek, if you weren’t paying attention–had a son named Riveroak John, and the names on the stone line up with records identifying their children. Jeff got into contact with me, and I put him in touch with Margaret Piatt, and I hope that pretty soon, the mystery can come to its desired conclusion and the stone returned to its rightful home.

I don’t want to post other people’s pictures here, or tell you too much of his story, because he can tell you himself. Check out this forum at GraveAddiction, and read all about Jeff’s fascinating headstoning investigation!

I wanted to post something for the Fourth of July, but nothing would really come to mind. I was running some errands in Urbana, though, yesterday, and I decided to stop and look around Oak Dale Cemetery. I hoped to maybe find some veterans or something like that I could talk about, but as I was driving around trying to think of something, I was sidetracked by this older part of the cemetery I’ve never really been through before. The stones in this patch were so unique, I decided just to post about them and leave the patriotism implied (Yay, America!). So this is not exactly a Fourth of July post, but today isn’t exactly the Fourth of July, so . . . we’ll live with that, then!

Oak Dale Cemetery isn’t one I’ve posted about before. First of all, don’t confuse it with Oak Grove Cemetery of Kingscreek, Ohio. Oak Dale is actually in the town of Urbana, address 319 Patrick Avenue. It’s a convenient enough drive–if you’re headed south down 68, just turn left at the roundabout onto US 36 and make a right on Patrick Ave. The cemetery is on your left after the Burger King. It was founded in 1856 and is notable as being the burial place of Simon Kenton, among other local legends . . . these include founders and other favorites of my alma mater, Urbana University. Ironically enough, the area I selected for photos today because I had never paid much attention to it is the area spotlighted by Beth of GraveAddiction–you might want to check out her pictures as well. I’ve only picked out five stones to talk about here, so if you want to see the rest, check out the slideshow at Shutterfly.

Anyway, I parked and began to wander around. One thing I love about exploring cemeteries is that while standing there looking at one marker, I’ll see another and be drawn over; from there, I’ll see another, and on and on. By stone-hopping, I can cover so much area and not even realize I’ve done it. These are the stones I hopped from yesterday.

First, that of “Ann O.” She is identified as the “wife of Christopher Michael,” and she died on the 14th of December, 1858, at the age of 84–which means she was probably born on April 12, 1774. The elaborate carving on this stone make it really eye-catching. There is also semi-legible text at the bottom that says she was born somewhere in Frederick Co., MD, and something else that starts “our dear Mother has gone . . .”

From Ann O., I had to check out this bizarre table gravestone. I may or may not have been able to determine that it was the grave of a doctor, but I would’ve advised him that this was a really poor choice of monument. As you can see, it is held up on six legs–well, one has collapsed–and its flat face is full to the elements, which have pretty nearly blasted all the text off. When I was finally standing on the correct side of it, I was able to tell that there were words, but I lacked the patience to attempt reading them. He seems to have had a wife named Rosetta, which makes me laugh–this is the Rosetta stone! O:)

Hardly was I done snapping pictures of them, though, when I saw this peculiar little guy! This odd little pillared house is dedicated to one “Frank Fairchild,” with the inscription “Our Little Frank.” He died on the 19th of some month in 1859, and may have been a year old–there’s an annoying shadow over that bit. The style of the marker, though, is so unique, I was really fascinated and took any number of pictures of it.

Next, what to my wandering eye should appear . . . but a winged angel hanging out pretty near! So I headed over to check her out. This is apparently the stereotypical angel for cemetery markers, and I may one day make a whole collection of all the places I’ve seen her and post them at once. This time she graces the final resting place of one James W. Fulton and his wife Anna.

This last one I actually had to cross the road for but I found it was worth it. This is a very pretty take on the angel headstone motif and I actually find it very sad. Check out the slideshow for the full version; I just picked one angle for here. The tombstone is for Russell Bunnell, who died in 1892 at the age of five. The words written by the angel on the scroll read, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

All in all, a really lovely day at the Urbana cemetery . . . but I can’t even tell you how hot it was! Check out the slideshow, comment, blah-blah-blah, and enjoy your Fourth of July!!

My Headstoning actually started quite early. My dad, an avid birdwatcher, had us down to Green Lawn Cemetery on a regular basis, and I always enjoyed that. Another fun thing was visiting various famous interments on family trips. In 1991, we took a couple of trips to the East Coast, including this one to Old Graveyard in Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania–the gravesite of legendary Molly Pitcher.

Mom, Sister, Me

Checking out Molly Pitcher

Running through Headstones

That is one of my favorite pictures because it just sums things up so well. There I am, wandering around through a maze of toppled, crowded headstones. I’m not looking for anything, I’m just hanging out, exploring, seeing what I see. Really that’s the reason to get into cemeteries in the first place, isn’t it? Anyway, moving onwardly!

Arguably one of the most important burial sites (or sights?) to see, for an American, is the tomb of George Washington located at Mount Vernon. We visited there while on our D.C. trip in 1991. To make things easier for you, I’m the white glowy thing directly in front of the flag on the left. My sister is in blue standing next to me. Admittedly, I am way more enthralled by the fencing than in the tomb itself, but give me a break! I’m six! Actually, I am probably not six yet. In any event, you’ve got to admit that the seeds are there, definitely there.

Father of the Country!

The same year–and possibly even earlier in the year because I look ridiculously young in this picture as opposed to the others–we went to Boston, Massachusetts (not Austen). Boston and Philadelphia always stick out when I remember the places I’ve been, probably because we (1) did a lot of walking both places (2) stayed there for awhile. This is a picture of me at the grave of John Winthrop–either the Massachusetts  Bay Colony Governor or the Colonial Royal Governor, I’m not sure which one. But this is at Kings Chapel Burial Ground in Boston, MA.

Young Headstoner in Pink

And pretty much that’s all there is to say about early headstoning. As you can no doubt see, my love of cemeteries started early–I love to point to the picture of me hugging a tombstone in the earlier post (see The Littlest Headstoner of Them All)–although my interest in history and genealogy didn’t come on board until much later.

As we all know, or should know, choosing a grad school is a time-consuming process that involves many factors, which is why we have spent the last four months investigating a variety of schools; now that we have come to our conclusion, there is again time for headstoning! (Yay!) And I promise we won’t let the site slide anymore Pinky promise.

The first graduate school we looked at was the distinguished Dominican University of River Forest, Illinois, famed home of MST3k/Rifftrax funnyman Kevin Murphy. While a nice school, it proved unacceptable on a variety of levels, beginning with . . .

The creepy disturbing terror that is this place

This is the mausoleum of the Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery located in Chicago, Illinois. This entire cemetery was unpleasant by Headstoner standards: disburbing iconography, flat tombstones, swaths of open space. And of course, this monstrosity of a mausoleum. Allow me to give you this satellite photo for reference. We drove past this structure for many severals of blocks. It is the size of a small planet. And as you should probably know about your Headstoners by now, we don’t like giant mausoleums on account of all the creepy vibes they emit. This place, serious creepy vibes. (Oh, and if you’re Catholic, from Illinois, or are buried here or know someone who is, I don’t mean to offend you; this is just not how the Headstoners roll.)

Anyway, it was quickly evident that River Forest was not the place for us. And so we moved on, seeking out a graduate school that would meet our rigorous qualifications. The next place we chose to visit personally was the University of Kentucky, located in stately, historic Lexington, which is, first of all, a very obviously warmer climate.

Lexington, in the heart of horse country, is a strange and unique city in that its limits are strictly enforced to prevent the city from encroaching on the horse-rich lands surrounding it. This results in a rather cramped city with surprising San Francisco-esque hilliness. (Okay, nothing that bad, but very close.) As usual, we visited the school and then began our investigation process. We popped into the first cemetery we found: Winchester!

Pretty Winchester Cemetery

Now, Winchester Cemetery of Lexington was established in 1854, and was interesting enough we got out of the car to investigate. There were some beautiful monuments and unique last names (which you will find shortly posted on our photo site–along with details about that site!), my favorite of which was “Quisenberry.” What a rocking last name! This mournful, meditative statue crowns the pillar in the center of the S.C. Anderson enclave , which seems to include about five graves of the Anderson family.

All in all, I really enjoyed the Winchester cemetery. No info on whether the cemetery is of any relation to the famous gun-manufacturing guy, the mansion his crazy widow built, or the astoundingly bad and inaccurate B horror movie supposedly “based” on the same.

Still, it did not quite say “home” to us. There was something missing, lacking–a certain element of “headstoniness,” if you will. And the search continued. I’ve no doubt that UK would have been pleasant as well as feasible, but we found something better.

Behold, the last step in our search–the University of Indiana at Bloomington. Now, I.U. at Bloomington has a great reputation, is in a beautiful town, and, all in all, looks great for us. So after a day of apartment hunting and checking out the local job scene, there was only one place left to go.

Rosehill Cemetery

This is Rosehill Cemetery, a rather large and extremely diverse cemetery in Bloomington, one of two in the immediate area. (While Lexington and River Forest both had cemeteries every few feet, and Bloomington is rather sparser on that front, Rosehill was so much better than any of them. We could easily spend hours exploring the depths of this place.)

What Rosehill has to offer are a variety of stones old and new, a range not unlike our alma mater, Green Lawn. Two of the most unique tombstones I have ever seen are here; one, quite close to the entrance gate, is carved like a little house. The other, seen on the left here, is the Dillon monument, inexplicably perfectly constructed to look like a pile of rubble. My guess is this either symbolizes a family ruined (probably from throwing a fortune away on a hefty intricate monument) or someone who died young.

So here it was, our missing “headstoniness.” Bloomington is the place for us. So now the mystery of the last few months is over, and you’ll be hearing more of us once more, as we spend our last (for now) summer cemeterying it up in Ohio and begin our forays into the frontier of Indiana cemeterism.

Upcoming attractions, I hope, include the resting place of Annie Oakley (in historic Darke County, Ohio), and perhaps more cemeteries along Ohio’s western border.