Even with permission do you hunt a graveyard???

BLK HOLE

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Aug 3, 2017
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So I went out door knocking today at some properties that date back to the 1930’s. I was 0-10 for any yes’s except for one house that had a graveyard off to the side of the property, the homeowner told me the only part he would allow me to hunt the graveyard. Several tombstones dates back to the 1890’s. I politely replied thanks but no thanks. So what do you do???
 

it just wouldn't feel right to me, and I have to live with myself
 

NO Never Not Good Bad Karma
 

The good news is you didn’t....
Otherwise I’d have to stay up all night and watch you get tarred and feathered.....
 

Oh good lord, somebody LOCK THIS THREAD NOW before we all know what this will turn into!
 

Better check the law in your state too. Mine says you may not disturb the ground within 10' of a grave.
 

Most, if not all States, have laws about disturbing cemeteries whether they are public or private. Not surprisingly Virginia is not an exception. § 18.2-127. Injuries to churches, church property, cemeteries, burial grounds, etc.; penalty.

It doesn't matter whether the property owner gives you permission it's still illegal.
 

I would not myself and would hope anybody detecting wouldn't ,would just put us on the s--- list. and people would start calling us archaeologist.
 

oddly enough I have... one time. BUT.... I was helping to find a ring that had been dropped in the gravel path during a funeral and I only moved the loose gravel around to see what the targets were and DID NOT DIG ANYTHING. We did find the ring in the gravel after a pretty short time, and left everything else right where it was.

We wouldn't have gone near it but for the fact that it was a grieving widows ring and it needed to be returned.

I couldn't see hunting a graveyard being acceptable for any other reason than that
 

On purpose...no. But on request...twice. For the Township that was going crazy trying to locate property line stakes. 🍯
 

This got me thinking.... I've unknowingly hunted at least one and maybe two cemeteries before... The first was the old Douglass School yard where I grew up. It was built over what had been Tharpe Cemetery. Supposedly all the graves had been moved but when the school was torn down to make way for a grocery store it turned out they just moved the headstones on many of them.... I hunted that place a couple times before they tore it down...and that was when we first heard that it had been a cemetery. The other may or may not have been but it was a French Quarter courtyard that was pretty close to another where forgotten graves were found when the owner went to have a pool installed, I'm not sure if the one I hunted had been part of the old cemetery or not, but now I'm wondering
 

no i wouldn't but my pawpaw told about a cemetery way back into the woods he wanted us to go find some old relics to get an idea where it was long story short never found ain't doing it again
 

Not a snowball's chance! Bad karma and very disrespectful (with the obvious exceptions already noted in this thread). I'm near a very old (late 18th century) but still active cemetery within a 1/10th of a mile from my home. It still has the iron rings in the granite slabs in the stone wall where horses were hitched. Technically, the 10 or 12 feet between those walls and the modern road are town property and NOT cemetery, but still too close for me.
By the way, I learned years ago during a walking tour of Charleston that a graveyard is on church grounds and a cemetery is outside church grounds. (More useless trivia that's stuck in my head).
HH
dts
 

EC06D092-6AFF-4245-9492-E36D3ADA05DE.jpeg
 

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