Cemeteries, Graveyards, Burying Grounds, & Churchyards
All gravestones are important.
I believe all gravestones are important.
No matter how small. How old. In what condition they’re in.
No matter if they are in well maintained cemeteries.
Or ones that have been neglected.
No matter if the grave is of someone with whom we identify.
Or someone of a differing cultural belief.
All gravestones represent a life once lived.
And, as such, all gravestones matter.
Cemetery research trip to Danbury, Connecticut
holds their annual conference each year in June. In 2017, our group gathered in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This year, 2018, we took the studies northward to Danbury, Connecticut.
Giving myself a few extra days for travel, I visited and studied cemeteries from Polk County, Tennessee through New York City and onward to Danbury.
For my part of the conference, I revisited a daylong workshop I lead in 2016 on the art of cemetery mapping using various modern day technological tools including aerial 3D mapping using modern day drones. This year, my presentation was brief but quite a few people showed enough interest that I will consider leading a full-day workshop at a future conference.
Since the volcano eruption on Hawaii is in the news this year, I presented my work during a recent trip to Hawaii where I studied lava affected cemeteries on the Big Island. I loved my trip to study Hawaiian Cemeteries and I hope to make a return trip to Hawaii one day soon.
I am involved with studying cemeteries (in some capacity) on a daily basis. The AGS Conference is the one time of the year I am surrounded by other cemetery people for a week at a time. The breadth and depth of knowledge of these cemetery researchers is truly inspiring. I come away from each conference with newfound knowledge that I try to apply to my passion.
Increasingly, Civic Organizations, Churches, and Schools are asking me to give presentations of my cemetery research. I always try to exhibit the knowledge and enthusiasm I garner from my AGS conference trips.
In all, I studied more than 20 cemeteries on this trip. At the bottom of this list is a short film I made of my travels.
Beckler Cemetery – Reliance, Tennessee
Double Springs Cemetery – Rock Springs, Tennessee
Beth El Cemetery – Harrisonburg City, Virginia
New York Marble Cemetery – New York, New York
Woodlawn Cemetery – Bronx, New York
Mill Plain Cemetery – Danbury, Connecticut
Resurrection Cemetery – Danbury, Connecticut
Kenosia Cemetery – Danbury, Connecticut
Wooster Cemetery – Danbury, Connecticut
New Haven Crypt – New Haven, Connecticut
Grove Street Cemetery – New Haven, Connecticut
Old Milford Cemetery – Milford, Connecticut
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery – Sleepy Hollow, New York
Millington Baptist Church Cemetery – Millington, New Jersey
St. Philip and St. James Cemetery – Greenwich Township, New Jersey
New Hope Congregational Christian Church Cemetery – New Hope, Virginia
Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery – Lexington, Virginia
Goodman Cemetery – Bristol, Virginia
Necessary Cemetery – Scott County, Virginia
Zion Lutheran Church Cemetery – Bristol, Virginia
Niota Cemetery – Niota, Tennessee
Cedar Grove Cemetery – Athens, Tennessee
If good fences make good neighbors then Rotten Bayou is a very neighborly cemetery, indeed.
I’ve never liked the feeling of being fenced in.
However, I do like the coziness that fences provide.
The Poet Robert Frost oft remarked that “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors.”
Evidently, this sentiment holds true even after death.
It’s an interesting phenominon the way in which cemeteries encourage the use of fences.
Fences can be implied by features as simple as low curbing around family plots and individual gravesites.
In some southern cemeteries, particularly in the Ozarks and Appalachia, this curbing is taken to an extreme level forming 24″ tall concrete fences.
Wood is regularly used in dryer climates. But, where the air is humid, decay degrades wooden fences rather quickly over time.
Fences made of wrought iron have been used in cemeteries for generations.
And lava, lava in volcanic island cemeteries
seemingly lasts forever.
Of all of the types of fences I’ve witnessed, one of the most interesting uses of fences is in a cemetery I recently visited in Diamondhead, Mississippi.
This is Rotten Bayou Cemetery. Being near Bay St. Louis on the Gulf Coast, its substrate is mostly granular sand. The cemetery has a long-held 
tradition that burial plots are free-of-charge as long as individual gravesites are clearly marked off.
This provision has lead many families to use chain link fencing as demarkation of their loved-ones’ gravesites.
Chain link as far as the eye can see.
If good fences make good neighbors then Rotten Bayou is a very neighborly cemetery, indeed.
Rock Creek Cemetery in Polk County, Tennessee is also known as Cloud Cemetery. On USGS maps, this cemetery is listed as Price Cemetery.
Rock Creek Cemetery is also known as Cloud Cemetery. On USGS maps, this cemetery is listed as Price Cemetery.
Overlooking the junction where the Ocoee River outflows into Lake Ocoee, an abandoned cemetery sits high on a hilltop. The lack of road access to this cemetery necessitates a scramble through wooded wilderness to reach the dozen marked gravesites. Some plots can only be differentiated from the surrounding forest by their caved-in appearance. Other plots are marked with simply field stones while others, still, are marked with hand carved gravestones. One gravesite, that of Revolutionary War soldier John White, stands out among the rest with a well maintained military headstone.
Rock Creek Cemetery risks fading from memory as it fades from view; obscured by the ever encroaching Cherokee National Forest.
Here is the Google Earth file of the significant stops I made as I searched for Rock Creek Cemetery.
Click below to play video of this newest cemetery exploration adventure.
Cemetery research tool to research cemeteries.
I love cemeteries, I love technology, and I love technology that helps me research cemeteries.
Here is a video I made of a brand new cemetery research tool.
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