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Thought I would share this.
K
Article published Oct 30, 2006
Overdue honor paid
Descendants show concern about future of pioneer cemeteries
BY PAM THARP
CORRESPONDENT
LIBERTY, Ind. -- Union County veteran James Davis waited a long time, but on Saturday he
received the honor due him.
Davis, a Revolutionary War veteran who died 179 years ago, was honored for his military
service in ceremonies at the rural New Hope Cemetery in Harmony Township.
The veteran's grave is now graced with a Revolutionary War marker and a Sons of the
American Revolution Color Guard fired a two-musket salute.
The service in the pioneer cemetery attended by two-dozen people may also result in some
help to restore it.
"Unfortunately, the cemetery is in shambles. We'll look to see what we as a
family can do to help," said great-great-great-great-great-grandson Jim Davis of
Raleigh, N.C., who attended the service. Several generations of the Davis family are
buried at New Hope, which once had a church and a one-room school.
Indiana has about 100,000 cemeteries and the care of pioneer cemeteries is an issue in
most counties.
Union County cemetery board member Karen Coffey, who is also the county's genealogy
librarian, said records show New Hope Cemetery has many more graves than are visible.
The stones have fallen over or sunken into the soil and are now covered by grass. The
cemetery board, though, has no funds to repair stones, she said.
In Indiana, township trustees are responsible for the upkeep of rural cemeteries created
before 1939, but most have little money to do anything more than mow them. The law,
though, requires trustees to reset and straighten all monuments.
Davis and his wife Mary's gravestones were refurbished for the ceremony earlier this
year by Mark Kreps of Muncie, a member of the National Society Sons of the American
Revolution. The work took three hours, he said.
Krebs said he learned his craft from John "Walt" Walters of Fayette County, who
recently received the Indiana Historic Preservation Award for outstanding preservation of
Indiana's cemetery and graveyard heritage.
James Davis is apparently the only Revolutionary War veteran buried at New Hope. Dennis
Babbitt, president of Muncie's Continental Chapter of the National Society Sons of the
American Revolution, said Davis' lack of a marker was an oversight.
"His grave was known and recorded, but it never had an official marker. We thought a
ceremony would be fitting to place one. We don't often get to do this," Babbit
said of the ceremony that included a re-enactment with a grieving widow, as well as the
color guard, musket salute and taps.