Here ya go.
From: Indianapolis Star July 29, 2007
Fisherman discovers submerged headstones.
State museum, DNR will try to determine origin of old markers found in White
River.
By Vic Ryckaert
Jim Hodges has never made a catch quite like the one he pulled from White
River north of Broad Ripple a few days ago.
The 62-year-old Indianapolis man lifted a 145-year-old gravestone into his
bass boat.
About a dozen additional gravestones dating as early as 1830 are in the
water west of the bridge in the 7700 block of Keystone Avenue.
"All these headstones, I don't think they have any business of being where I
found them," Hodges said.
Hodges stumbled on to the stones last week as he untangled a snagged fishing
line. He rescued one that reads "Frank H. Kelly, 1830-1862," and said he
will keep it at his home until someone official wants it back.
"I figure it belongs in my garden just as well as it belongs in the bottom
of a river," he said. "I'm thinking someone got paid to possibly move a
small cemetery, and they did half the job."
Experts from the Indiana State Museum and the Department of Natural
Resources figure the stones were tossed in the river decades ago. They are
now researching to determine where they belong.
"Because they are bunched together, this is somebody who dumped them there,"
said Jeannie Regan-Dinius, cemetery registry coordinator with DNR's Division
of Historic Preservation and Archaeology.
"We're going to get them out of the river, clean them with the proper
techniques and either put them back where they belong or in some other
respectful place," Regan-Dinius said.
One stone that reads "William S. Longhenry, 1868-1914" was turned over to
the Indiana State Museum last week.
R. Dale Ogden, the museum's chief curator for cultural history, said
Longhenry's monument has been stored in a segregated artifact-holding area
so the microbes living on it do not spread to other relics.
"This kind of stuff pops up every now and then in a lot of different ways,"
Ogden said. "Neighborhoods change, and what used to be the country is now
the city."
Some stones, he said, have been surplus markers that were never used because
of a mistake or were replaced after family members bought something more
ornate. A farmer or construction crew might have stumbled upon them while
looking to develop land that was once a cemetery.
"A lot of people have passed through here in the last 4,000 years," Ogden
said. "It makes sense that every now and then we run into one of them."
The stones might have been stored somewhere until someone decided to get rid
of them, Ogden said. He can't offer any legitimate reason someone would
throw them in White River.
"Breaking up those stones would be some work," he said. "The easiest thing
to do is to put them somewhere where they are not likely to be seen anytime
soon."
Other submerged stones read "Effie A. Ferryman, 1861-1920" and "Samuel H.
Lisle, At Rest, 1868-1925."
Recovering the stones will take several weeks, officials said. In the
meantime, experts will enlist the aid of genealogists to dig through records
and link the names to a cemetery believed to be in or near Marion County.
"With the names and the birth and death dates, they should be able to have a
pretty good chance of tracking where these things came from," Ogden said.
"It's a mystery, isn't it? It may be a mystery that will be solved."
-----Original Message-----
From: inpcrp-bounces(a)rootsweb.com [mailto:inpcrp-bounces@rootsweb.com]On
Behalf Of Tewastar(a)aol.com
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 11:22 AM
To: inpcrp(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: [INPCRP] Check out Fisherman discovers submerged headstones
|IndyStar.com
did cut and paste...no luck? suggestions??
In a message dated 7/29/2007 5:58:30 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
KidClerk(a)aol.com writes:
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OCAL18)
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