🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Question about a couple of "gravestones."

[creskol]

I have found two "gravestones" in the course of the cemetery restoration project that are made out of enameled tin. I have never seen that before and was wondering if anybody here is familiar with them and what the date range for them might be. The plaques that had the information on them are stainless steel, but all the info is long gone.

 

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[Underwonder]

What about using a probe to see if there are any caskets or voids in the ground. We use them to find old privys and trash pits. They make a very small hole in the ground.

We use probes to find headstones and footstones and bases but in the historical cemeteries I am in, there are no caskets (wood or cloth disintegrated by now) and if there were, they would be deeper than probe....but probing IS helpful in some situations.

 

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[Underwonder]

Meaning how deep?

I was thinking "how far apart" from each other....but how deep is also good to know!

 

[uneedtlc2]

What about using a probe to see if there are any caskets or voids in the ground. We use them to find old privys and trash pits. They make a very small hole in the ground.

We do use a probe before to check before we dig a new grave, but they aren't reliable on cemeteries this old. They didn't use vaults back then. Only wooden boxes. Most of the 1800 graves have returned to the Earth. We have started digging before and come across "black dirt". We have to fill it back in, mark it, and move over a couple of feet and start again.

If there is an indention in the ground, that usually means there is someone there and the casket has deteriorated, but this cemetery is on an old coal mine. There are small dips like that all over.

 

[creskol]

We do use a probe before to check before we dig a new grave, but they aren't reliable on cemeteries this old. They didn't use vaults back then. Only wooden boxes. Most of the 1800 graves have returned to the Earth. We have started digging before and come across "black dirt". We have to fill it back in, mark it, and move over a couple of feet and start again.

If there is an indention in the ground, that usually means there is someone there and the casket has deteriorated, but this cemetery is on an old coal mine. There are small dips like that all over.

There are other methods that can be used as well. The fill dirt in dug graves never reaches the density of the undisturbed dirt surrounding them.

 

[uneedtlc2]

I was thinking "how far apart" from each other....but how deep is also good to know!

They can be pretty close. I've never thought to measure. Once he finds one, he and I will go play and start in a completely different area. We will zig zag all over the place.

There are other methods that can be used as well. The fill dirt dug graves never reaches the density of the undisturbed dirt surrounding them.

 

[uneedtlc2]

They can be pretty close. I've never thought to measure. Once he finds one, he and I will go play and start in a completely different area. We will zig zag all over the place.I

 

[uneedtlc2]

If the graves are really close together, it does cause problems with the dogs.
As for the depth, I really don't know about in the cemetery because I have never dug one of them up. I have been told a dog can smell as deep as 8-10 feet. Other professionals will tell you 30 feet, but I personally think that is stretching it out there a bit far. Out on a search for missing (presumed dead), he located a guy who had been wrapped in a comforter, tied up in a tarp, rolled up in a rug, and put in a shallow grave (3.5-4 feet).
I will go hide training materials a day or two in advance before we go practice somewhere. I may put one in a tree, in old freezer someone threw out, in a bag of trash, but I'm lazy and I hate digging holes. So, the things I do put in the ground, is rarely farther than 3'. lol