OAK GROVE CEMETERY ADOPTION PROJECT
In June of '08, our team was called upon to investigate an abandoned cemetery on private property near Irvington, Ky. Upon arriving and seeing the terrible shape of the cemetery, we decided as a group to adopt this place and start a restoration project. In the year following, we have since completed four phases of this restoration project, with much progress taking place. The majority of the cemetery is now cleared of downed trees and undergrowth, a park bench has been donated by Bree and placed onsite, the existing headstones have been uprighted and restored, and much research has been done on the people buried here. We have documented some paranormal activity at this cemetery, not alot but enough to make us wonder if the people buried here are really at rest.
Thanks to the research done by John, Angie, and Pam of Ky Spirit, we now have 59 names documented which were previously unknown. The names and information were placed on a spreadsheet on findagrave.com so that the information would not be lost. You can view this information at http://findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&CRid=2306721.
Perhaps the most exciting moment of this project was during clean-up #3, when we located Martin Boards headstone which was buried under the ground. The photographs below will tell the story:
Above: After removing some downed branches, I noticed this "field stone" looked a little too perfect. Upon digging around, I saw some inscriptions and realized this was not a field stone at all but a broken headstone.
Above: Once we grabbed a probing rod and did a search, we found the rest of the headstone under about six inches of dirt. It had apparantly been broken and covered up for years. The above pic shows Laura washing it off with water so we could read the inscriptions.
Above: The entire headstone. We are currently researching the name and date to help us find out more about this family. We are looking into the best way to get this set back up in its base and the fracture repaired. In the meantime, we are very proud that this person is no longer forgotten, at least by us.
HENRY COUNTY CEMETERY PROJECT:
In June of '09 the team investigated a cemetery on private property in Henry County Ky. This particular cemetery had been destroyed when the property owner bulldozed the plot to clear the farms property lines. All the headstones were piled into the corner of a fencerow, almost hidden by tall weeds. When we saw this, we decided that although we already had one restoration project in the works, that we could not leave this as we found it. With the support of the landowner, we set up each headstone before we left. Each name and date was recorded and researched. We decided to adopt this cemetery also and make sure it did not vanish from existance.
This cemetery dates back to mid 1800 and was the Bartlett family plot. We found that the families father who is buried here was once the towns practicing doctor. Two children, each aged one year, are also buried in this cemetery. We intend to further research this little cemetery and have taken it upon ourselves to restore it the best we can. To date no paranormal activity has been documented by our group at this location.
*UPDATE*
On August 23 our team returned to work on this project. The weather was perfect for working outside, and we were able to accomplish quite a bit. We first straightened some of the headstones to make them line up better. Next, we took a weedeater and cut the grass and weeds around the plot. With the high grass taken care of, we installed the landscaping fence I donated for the project. Once the fence was in place, Laura put flowers which she had purchased in front of each headstone. The place now looks much better than when we first found it, and we'll continue to check up on it from time to time in the future.
Above, is how it looked when we arrived.
Above, Laura placing flowers in front of each headstone after the grass was cut and the fence installed.
Above, the finished project. While we have no way of knowing where the stones were originally standing, we feel that the above monument is much better than the pile of headstones we first found.
Above, a shot from a distance using the Moditronic Full Spectrum camera.