Exhuming the Dead. Warning: images may be disturbing to some people.

The exhumation of graves is never something done on a whim. The process, if done correctly, is a careful and meticulously documented endeavor. Not just the moving of stones...

This blog will walk you, the reader, through the exhumation process of an entire family that was conducted in Rochester, N.H.

The site of the original Legro Cemetery and exhumations.
Plastic was used to preserve the area. 

During the fall of 2009, an archaeologist on a state-sponsored excavation project for the NH Highway Department, exhumed the remains within the Legro and Leighton cemetery which was located in middle of the on/off ramp of Exit 15 off the Spaulding Turnpike in Rochester, NH. The removal of the cemetery was to make way for the new highway ramps.

Years before the exhumation project all of the headstones had been removed from the cemetery, for what was called "safe keeping" by a local cemetery enthusiast. This person made a hand written map, using tree locations as measurements to mark where the headstone once stood. This ultimately posed a huge challenge for the archeological team since some of the trees had been removed since the making of the map. The true size of the family cemetery and position that the markers had been in were now not properly documented. It would be a game of guess work to locate exact positioning for all of the remains. All this extra work for the team, due to the actions of a person who wanted to "help".

Carefully removing soil from the remains.

Elihu Legro's remains

The workers started their day at 7 am and worked through the day until 5 pm.



Most of the team's day was spent bent over on their knees in the dirt performing painstaking work. This made for very long days.  








At the end of their work day the workers would secure their tools, stretch plastic sheeting over the site and secure them with sandbags.


A tractor would then bring in large sheets of metal to be laid on top to keep anyone from tampering with the site. 




The team typically didn't work past 5 pm unless they found new remains, then they all concentrated their time on quickly and carefully exhuming and documenting the newest finds before it became too dark. 

A Leighton Child

Pieces of glass were found on top of some of the children's skulls, this would have allowed for a closed casket funeral where the child's face was visible. These coffins were known as a viewing coffins. The glass had the unintended consequence of creating a "microenvironment" that allowed for better preservation of some of the remains. The children's remains are from the 1840s or '50s, while the adults may have been buried as late as 1871.

One of the many great finds was the original headstone that belonged to Elihu which was thought to have been removed to make way for his Civil War Military stone. 

It was buried under 8 inches of soil and three feet from his resting place.

Mary Legro remains. Notice the hairpin used to hold her hair back is still present on the skull.

Researchers found elaborate buttons near the remains of Mary Legro. Also present was a hair pin and a frock button which would have been a part of her dress.

A collection of burial artifacts including buttons, nails and a coffin handle.

The whole process took approximately two weeks to complete.


The final archeological report showed the Legro Cemetery measured 25 rods and contained the remains of David and Joanna Legro, Elihu and Mary Legro, their son Elihu Jr., 2 of  Elihu’s siblings, as well as four children from the Leighton Family.


On May 8^th 2010 under rainy skies, Elihu Legro a Civil War veteran was reburied with full military honors at the Rochester Cemetery.
 

Small handmade pine caskets.

Prior to Elihu's burial, the rest of the family was reburied.

All were reburied in the same order they were found in. 

All were given new handmade caskets as seen in this photo to the right.

Pine caskets placed in eco-vaults.

As you can see, this was a massive undertaking.  Not just a quick shuffling of gravestones from one location to another. Officials from the governor's office to state and local government agencies were involved.

Daniel Meehan a Son's of Union Veteran's official and a Civil War reinactor with the 12th New Hampshire single-handedly orchestrated the entire funeral.

Final Footnote:

It was noticed that Elihu's and Mary's heads were tipped to the sides. The result was that each was  looking at the other.

Prior to being placed within their newly made coffins, straw was laid down and they were placed the same exact way, so they will continue to look at each other through the ages.

May they finally rest in peace.

This photo shows how they were found.

Oh Crap! Grave mistakes...

Stone is a wonderful medium for recording information that is meant to last for ages... but what if a mistake is made?

The following is a look at how stone cutters sometimes dealt with mistakes.


Often times dates were calculated incorrectly on a stone. This might be a simple math error... but how to fix a mistake carved into stone?

How about the old  carve-out-a-chunk trick? Worked like a charm for the skilled carver. 

Until that perfect fitting piece falls out.

If a word was spelled wrong....

 just keep going and hope no one notices?

 Forget a letter or two?

 Use that classic   ^    symbol and squeeze them in.

 Oh Man!

There's two O's in Dinsmoor? 








 Another problem may have been...

"I really don't like how that particular element in a carving turned out."

The answer: Erase it!

There are countless mistakes and their remedies caught in stone. I never cease to be amused at what I find. It also reminds me how thankful I am for spell check!

The Grave of a Pilgrim

William Bradford.                ~ Plymouth Colony Governor                                                                                                                                  “Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many...”

The Mayflower departed Plymouth, England in September of 1620. The small, 100-foot ship had 102 passengers and a crew of 30-40 in terribly cramped conditions.  In November of 1620, after about 3 months at sea, including a month of delays in England, they finally spotted land.

After returning from an exploration party on land,  William Bradford made his way back on board the ship, where he was told of the death of his wife, Dorothy. One day after he had embarked with the exploring party, Dorothy had fallen over the side of the Mayflower and drowned. Bradford recorded her death in his journal.

The grave site of WilliamBradford

Bradford had delayed writing his will in hopes that he could obtain the services of his friend, Thomas Prence. But "feeling himself very weak and drawing on to the conclusion of his mortal life," he made out a nuncupative will on the day of his death.

 William Bradford was buried on Burial Hill in Plymouth, MA.  His current stone is made of slate and is preserved nicely within a granite support.
The epitaph on the stone reads:

"He lived long but was still doing 
good,
And in his countrys service lost 
much blood;
After a life well spent, he's now 
at rest,
His very name and memory
is blessed."

New England's Death Bells

Death In New England was an all too often visitor.  Of the first 102 Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth in 1620, half died during the first winter.

We know of the difficulties of early American life in part, due to records kept by individual colonists. Samuel Sewall was a New England merchant and magistrate whose detailed diary written from 1673 to 1729, gives us a very personal look at death in Colonial America. Seven of his 14 children died before the age of 2; only 3 out of the 14 children would make it to outlive their father.

Well known Puritan preacher Cotton Mather saw 8 of his 15 children die before the age of 2.

With disease, lack of medicine, harsh weather conditions and starvation constantly plaguing setters, many turned to superstition and the supernatural to explain the losing of loved ones or other calamities. 

The moon was thought to have mystical powers. If a pregnant woman looked at the moon for instance, she may have a child who suffered from sleep walking. The presence of witches was also used to explain all manner of misfortunes. Witches were also thought to be able to summon evil spirits in helping them cause harm.

Faith was one of the few things that early settlers could rely upon for protection against the unknown. Terrifying imagery and dark scary epitaphs were used on gravestones as the Puritan's idea of a "friendly reminder" for the mortal reader that only the most devote might have a chance at eternal reward. This being said, churches were an integral part of every settlement and many had bells to call worshipers to services on Sundays. 

There was another reason for tolling the bells and it had a darker purpose.

It was believed that the newly departed soul was extremely vulnerable to the malevolent spirits that constantly roamed the earth searching for souls to prey upon. Some believed they stood at the very foot of the death bed waiting. 

The only way to combat this most awful scenario, was a slow tolling of church bells. It was thought that the sound emitted by the bells would scare away any evil spirits and allow the soul a chance to safely ascend into Heaven. 

Those who could afford it, may donate a sum of money to the church in order to toll the bells for an extended period before death.

 In some communities one could tell the age of the person who had deceased by the pattern of the bell tolling. A simple chime for each year of life may be rung. Or if the person was say 62 years old, six strikes with a pronounced pause followed by another two may communicate the information to those listening.

Scottish and British immigrants were familiar with another kind of death bell.

A special bell known as a "mort-bell," and another called the "soul-bell" was tolled after a death had taken place. It was possible to tell by the sound of the "soul-bell" if it was rung for an adult, or for a child, for in the former case the tenor was sounded and in the latter, the treble. It was, moreover, customary to distinguish the sex, by tolling three times for a man and twice for a woman, followed, after a pause, by a stroke for each year corresponding to the age of the deceased.

Amongst other old customs, the practice is recorded of ringing the bell three times before the gravedigger disturbed the burial ground for a new grave, a custom known as "ringing home the dead."

The U.S. Military Marker: a history.

Countless rows of gleaming white stones, that is the image that comes to mind when one thinks of military cemeteries. But did you know United States Government headstones have a history all their own?

The original standard gravestone has its origin in the frontier days when it was the duty of the garrison commanders to bury their dead, mainly in cemetery plots within garrisons and those not so fortunate were buried where death occurred.

The departed were marked with a wooden board with a rounded top bearing a registration number or inscription.

This system might have been ok for the forces in the frontier, but it could scarcely meet the needs of the national army that came into being at the beginning of the Civil War. Soon after the first battle of Manassas, the War Department issued General Orders #75 on September 11, 1861, which made commanders of the national forces responsible for burials and marking graves. In the same General Orders, the Quartermaster General of the Army was directed to provide headboards as well as blank books and forms for the preservation of burial records. General Orders #75 created the first organized system of marking graves.

In 1865, when burials approached 100,000 in national cemeteries, there were serious considerations given to the thought of how much it was going to cost to maintain the wooden headboards being used. It was estimated that the total recovered dead of the Civil War would be around 300,000 and, considering the average cost of a headboard at $1.23 each and a life expectancy of not more than five years, it became obvious that the original and replacement costs would exceed $1 million over a 20-year period.

Besides the costs of wooden headboards, public sentiment was turning to a more permanent way of marking graves. Several years of controversy ensued within the War Department as to the type of headstone should be used instead of the wooden headboard. There were those who favored the use of marble and those who favored galvanized iron coated with zinc. The controversy between marble and galvanized iron continued for several years.

 The monument shown to the right is an example of a Zinc marker. It has a characteristic blue-grey hue.

In 1873, Secretary of War William W. Belknap adopted the first design for stones to be erected in national cemeteries. For the known dead, the department adopted a slab design of marble or durable stone four inches thick, 10 inches wide and 12 inches in height extending above the ground. The part above the ground was polished and the top slightly curved.

 The number of the grave, rank, name of the soldier and the name of the state were cut on the front face. This original design for the permanent headstone was referred to as the "Civil War" type, and was furnished for members of the Union Army only. The stone featured a sunken shield in which the inscription appeared in bas-relief.

  For the unknown dead, the stone was a block of marble or durable stone six inches square, and 30 inches long. The top and four inches of the sides of the upper part were finished and the number of the grave cut on the top. 

 In 1903 the height of the stone was increased to 39 inches, the width to 12 inches, and the thickness to four inches. The use of stone blocks for marking unknown graves in national cemeteries was discontinued on Oct. 21, 1903, and the graves were marked with the same design as those furnished for the known dead.



  Point of interest:
According to a graves registrar for the Sons of Union Veterans, if an original stone is replaced with a modern version - the older stone is to be destroyed and used as base material for the newer stone.

 The question of permanently marking graves of Confederates in national cemeteries and Confederate burial plots resulted in the Act of March 9, 1906, authorizing the furnishing of headstones for the graves of Confederates who died, primarily in Union prison camps and were buried in federal cemeteries.

Congress adopted the same size and material for Confederate headstones as headstones for Civil and Spanish War dead. The design varied in that the top was pointed instead of rounded and the shield was omitted.



 

As the story goes the reason for the point at the top was to prevent "Yankees" from sitting on Confederate headstones.

An act on Feb. 26, 1929, authorized the furnishing of this type of stone for graves in private cemeteries, as well.

On May 26, 1930, the War Department implemented regulations for Confederate headstones that also authorized the inscription of the Confederate Cross of Honor in a small circle on the front face of the stone.






Following World War I, a board of officers adopted a new design to be used for all graves except those of veterans of the Civil and Spanish-American Wars. The stone was of the slab design referred to as "General" type, slightly rounded at the top, of white marble, 42 inches long, 13 inches wide and four inches thick. The inscription on the front face would include the name of the soldier, his rank, regiment, division, date of death and state from which he came.

In April 1941, the Under Secretary of War approved the use of granite material for stones similar to the existing designs of the Civil and Spanish-American Wars, and the Confederate and General types. These granite headstones were discontinued in 1947, however, because of the inability to procure them within the price limitations authorized by the War Department.

To assure the marking of all graves of all eligible members of the armed forces and veterans buried in private cemeteries, who due to cemetery regulations were permitted only a flat marker type, the following designs were approved by the Assistant Secretary of War:

* flat marble marker adopted Aug. 11, 1936

*flat granite marker adopted Sept. 13, 1939, April 18, 1940





*and in 1940 the use flat bronze markers was adopted.

 Starting in 1951 the Secretary of the Army started approving religious emblems besides the Christian cross and adding the recent conflicts.


Dec. 12, 1988 "MIA" and "POW" was approved.

 Jan. 19, 1994 The Secretary of Veterans Affairs authorized the reintroduction of upright granite headstones.

With so many variations over so many years, one thing is for sure... the official United States Military Marker will forever be adapting and changing with the times. Just like the soldiers they commemorate.


Happy Veteran's Day to all those who have or are currently serving.

How the Civil War taught us to deal with the business of death.

The American Civil War was a brutal war but it brought on great awareness of how to handle and bury our war hero’s.

The government for both the North and South saw the coming conflict as a war that would not last much more then 90 days. A grave underestimate all around, they would soon would find out that the war would continue with unfathomable loss of life. Neither side was prepared for the numbers of dead that they would suffer.

There was absolutely no structure in place on how to identify or how to handle thousands of dead soldiers.

After word of a battle, whole communities went on a quest for information on who may have become a casualty. With no responsibility on either side for notifying the next of kin, newspapers from both north and south published long lists of the dead after every major engagement, taken from official military reports - which were not always accurate. So people went missing; people went buried unidentified or miss identified and the missing in action disappeared.

Zouave ambulance crews remove the wounded from a battlefield.

Imagine your loved one being 18 years old, he leaves for war, far from home. You later read your sons name in the newspaper as dead. Or maybe you receive a letter from one of his comrades explaining that your son has died and he was buried in a shallow grave or worse, a mass grave upon the battlefield...

 

Now it is up to you to either let him rest eternally there, to make the trip to yourself to locate his remains, or to possibly pay someone to locate the remains, retrieve them, and hope the that body is successfully shipped back home to you.

One of the major problems was trying to trying to identify the thousands of bodies after a battle since dog tags had not been issued yet. Many men were reported as missing presumed dead only later to be found wounded in a hospital or in a prison after being taken a prisoner of war. It was the responsibility of the  field commanders for identification and burial efforts. However, these efforts were not well organized or executed, and were often given low priority. 

A privately purchased Civil War ID tag

In order to help them go home if they became a casualty, men would soon start pinning their names inside their coats and some would buy a brass tag from a sutler with their name, regiment and state stamped onto it to. These were not government issued to soldiers. Modern forms of soldier identification, i.e. dog tags would not come about until WWI.

 If you could afford shipping the body home you then would be challenged on how to preserve the remains in order to hold a viewing. Bodies were sometimes packed in ice or just shipped in a pine coffins. Nurses would sometimes gather flowers to be placed within the coffin to mask the stench of the decaying remains. Occasionally the people who were hired to locate and ship the remains home would lie about finding the remains and have stones placed within the coffin. This would simulate the weight of a body and ensure a payment for their "efforts". It would be a terrible shock to the family if they decided to get one last look at their loved ones. 

Embalming, which was used to preserve for medical studies, would soon be used to preserve remains for shipping... for a price. Thomas Holmes who pitched himself as the father of embalming and was given the rank of captain in
the U.S. Army Medical Corps would charge $50 for an officer and $25 for an enlisted man. As the war continued and embalmers were in high demand, those figures rose to $80 and $30, respectively. Feeling he could make even more money if he worked in the private sector performing the same duties, Holmes resigned his commission and began to charge $100 per embalming.

As surgeons and pharmacists became aware of the profits to be made from embalming, they traded in their instruments for those of embalmers and followed the troops into war. After the battle, the embalmers would converge on the scene and quickly find dead officers to embalm, knowing that the family of an officer would be grateful and able to pay the fee. One embalming company went so far as to try to obtain a government contract to embalm all Federal dead. A bill was introduced to allow the creation of a corps of military undertakers for each division, but it was never passed.

To market embalming, a Washington embalmer showcased an embalmed soldier in a display window for days.

Richard Burr, a Union surgeon who served with the 72nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, became an embalming surgeon when he saw the profit to be made. Known for severely inflating the price of embalming services, he created and distributed handbills after the battle of Anita offering “Embalming for the Dead.” The handbills invited the curious to watch the procedure.

Some remains were sent to the wrong families who were shocked when they opened the wooden coffins to find out that it wasn't their loved ones inside...

One such story "The Stranger" comes from Gray, Maine:

Upon hearing of the death of their loved one the family of Lt. Charles H. Colley, Co. B., 10th Maine Vol. paid the government for embalming and transportation of the remains. When his body arrived they opened the casket in farewell. Instead of their son, they found a fully uniformed Confederate soldier. They were grief stricken but finally decided to bury the lad in a Gray Cemetery. That no ill will was borne the soldier was evidenced by the erection of a tombstone over his grave shortly after. Inscribed on the slab was, "Stranger-a soldier of the late war. Erected by the Ladies of Gray." No one knows for sure how the mistake was made. Lt. Colley's body arrived shortly after. He is buried about 100 feet southwesterly from the Stranger. Local historians guess that both Lt. Colley and the Confederate might have been wounded in the same battle, hospitalized together and both must have died about the same time. And there's always the possibility that the Confederate soldier may have been named Colley. Similarity in names could have accounted for the error.

With the awareness of the amount of bodies needing burial Congress approved the purchase of land in 1862, twelve military cemeteries located on or near major battlefields, Union camps and hospitals, and other military sites were authorized. Most of them, including Robert E. Lee's estate, which became Arlington Cemetery, were on Southern soil. In the midst of the war and in the immediate aftermath these cemeteries made profoundly political statements about Northern power, resources, and determination.

 The sheer numbers of those needing gravestones also altered the way in which we carved final memorials in general... but that, as they say, is the stuff for yet another blog.

Thank You to 
Daniel Meehan,

Civil War Historian 
and Reenactor,
for sharing his vast knowledge and expertise on this topic.

the Claddagh

It's rare, but occasionally I stumble across this icon on a grave stone. It has to be one of the most romantic images I know of.  It's a symbol of love created in the small Galway fishing village of Claddagh. The word “Claddagh” comes from the Irish term An Cladach, meaning a flat, stony shore.


The parts of the symbol are broken down as so,
Two hands (friendship) cradling a heart (love) topped by a crown (loyalty).

Legends behind the claddagh are many but one stands out as a triumph of the power that true love can hold...

Richard Joyce, a native of the small fishing village, was captured by Algerian pirates and sold as a slave to a Moorish goldsmith. When William III of England demanded the release of all British subjects, Joyce, too, was released. Not wanting to lose a valuable and skilled apprentice, the Moorish goldsmith offered Joyce a major portion of his wealth and his daughter in marriage, if Joyce would stay on in Algiers. Joyce refused the tempting offer and returned to the village of Claddagh where he had left behind the woman he loved. Some legends say that each day Joyce took a tiny bit of gold and saved it till he had enough to form a ring. Other accounts say he designed the symbol upon his return to Ireland. Either way, the ring he made stood for eternal love and was given, with his heart, to the woman who waited for him at home.

How to wear the Claddagh

If the ring is worn on the right hand with the crown facing out ward, the heart is available and looking for love.

  If the crown is turned to face the wearer... love has been found and is being considered.

Once the ring has been transferred to the left hand, love has become eternal.

To find the Claddagh on a gravestone speaks to the love a couple shared in life and their promise to each other that not even death can take it from them.  

Seriously... is that romantic or what?