3 cemeteries and not a town to be found?

[Dr. Syn]

Anywho, a town/settlement usually has a cemetery nearby, many times right near the church if they had one. Near my farm in Somerset County there are 3 "known"what I would call rural cemeteries, each right by the local church, and one town cemetery just a stones throw from the town's churches. Nothing abnormal about that.

The abnormal part? There are also 3 cemeteries I've found (so far) in wondering the adjacent lands to my place. These are smaller ones, maybe 20 or so graves, dating back to the 1700's, maybe even older as many of the stones are unreadable. My family has lived on these parts since the 1700's and I'll be dipped if I can find any records personal or govt., showing not only the cemeteries, but any type of village, hamlet, town or settlement near by. Closest town is a mine town and it's no where near as old, and it's an easy 5 miles as the crow flies, to the nearest cemetery. As for transportation, back then, mostly dirt paths as other then our family's farms, there was nothing to go to. Nearest waterway was probably 8 miles away, and at best you could travel it with a canoe.

One cemetery sits on a knoll, slowly being reclaimed by Mother Earth, the other two are in deep woods, and just looking at the trees in the areas it's been deep woods for a long long time. From the stones I've been able to read, ages run the gambit from elderly to infant on the knoll cemetery. The woods ones are so old most of the stones look like simple field stones marking plots, so who knows how old they are.

Another odd thing, from the stones I've been able to read, none of them are from my family. Very few are names that may/may not be relatives of different names. And I've traced my family on my mothers side back to the 1600's and other then a spelling change they are still the same.

So why are there these 3 cemeteries out in the middle of no where? And not even close to any civilization at any time, at least as far as I've been able to determine? Who were they? Were they just passing through? Were they victims of an Indian attack, hurriedly buried? Maybe victims of disease that were put out there to keep the sickness away? Battle losses ? Were they crime victims? This was at one time a hot bed of the KKK. Yeah part of my family history.

Just one of those things that make you go hmm.

 

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[releventchair]

Disease comes to mind here too.
There were a couple stones far back of a homestead ,across a big ravine even on one old site a friend owned.

A village north of me has a cemetery I've visited due to friends family being there that is far from town too.
A beautiful panoramic view from high ground though.

Workers/hands may have had their own plots too.

 

[Mackaydon]

Some thoughts.......
(1)Lakeland was plotted in 1882. That plot map may designate the location of planned cemeteries and the plat would be available at one of your public offices.
(2) Action, on the south shore of Lake Parker, was a nearby town and is now gone. Are you close to that area?
(3) In the summer of 1898 some 9,000 troops were stationed in Lakeland awaiting embarkation to Cuba (Spanish Am. War). Perhaps one or more of those cemeteries had something to do with that event.
(4) Have you contacted the Lakeland, City, County and State historians? You can get their names, etc. from the Lakeland Library (Research Desk)
I'm interested and curious to read how this mystery plays out.
Don.....

 

[Dr. Syn]

Don, this is in Somerset Co. PA, I own some of my family's farm up there.
Only close towns are Hooversville, and Hillsboro. Hooversvile was founded 1896, Hillsboro (about a dozen homes) somewhere around 1900, both long after these cemeteries.

Next larger towns would be Somerset, and Johnstown, founded 1770, which was founded/named after my great great and so on Grand pap. Almost like this area would have been like said, other then some farms, more or less just an area passed thru in traveling between Johnstown and Somerset, and farther west.

As for the local governments help, from what I've found, I have more records then they do. Old deeds, plot maps, deep mine maps, and such. My family on my mom's side owned most of and still own a lot of the local businesses in some of the fore mentioned towns, so I even have stuff related to them from way way back.

I've searched the local archives for cemeteries and churches, and no mention of these small ones, which in being so small and out of the way it seems they were never recorded. Even looked through the Penn Pilot photo site of old aerial maps to see if I could see anything that might have been near by, but they only go back to the mid 1930's so not a lot of help.

Kinda like a treasure hunt if you will, I'd love to find out more about those resting there. Next trip there I'm going to photograph and get as much info off the headstones that I can. Maybe something there will lead me in a different direction as to how they came to be there. Kinda sad in a way, these may have been some of the first folks in this area, and now they are totally forgotten.

 

[releventchair]

Uncle spent time figuring how many burials and locating the boundaries at a cemetery near here that natives and later some whites used.
He wrote a history of the county but I don't recall any close settlement to the site.
There were scattered people around though, greater tracts of land homesteaded than towards the end , and it is near enough to a river and trails to have been accessible enough.

Sorry if getting off topic.
Uncle passed and was one to work old cemeteries to not lose their aura's by total neglect.
Here's part of his work. One link to Mercer Co. Pa. on the site.
Though there's 142 million grave records too on the find a grave area.

Because the dead ask only to be

 

[airscapes]

Could have been family cemeteries.. land owner family and his servants?

 

[Mackaydon]

You could also find the owners of these lands and ask them if they know of the cemeteries and their history.
Don.....

 

[Curtis]

In Southern Ohio we have several small family burials that may be 20- to 30 people in them...my great grandfather took me to one that he knew of that was taken care of in the late 1800s but trees have taken over now..no one knew of it....I let the local genealogist at the library know about it...also some early graves are Indians....some even have English names that were friends or made up....they would have died back then and no one would have marked it-maybe from small pox?