The Old Folks Home

[Wickedchicken6]

My husband and I went down to an old plantation that is across from the school he teaches at, the house is wrecked, not really salvageable, but we found the family graveyard. The graves were all dating back to the civil war and some of the carvings were beautiful. There are 8 bodies there, 6 with headstones, 2 with fieldstone, 2 of the ones with headstones were babies less than a year old. One headstone is broken and we couldn't read it, all of the others are either fallen or leaning really bad.

We looked up records, there are supposed to be 2 graveyards there, and the man who's kids are in the cemetery owned 30+ slaves, so we think maybe the other one is the slave cemetery. We would like to find that one as well if possible but don't know where to look or anything.

Wow...that' incredibly interesting!

 

[Kusanar]

Wow...that' incredibly interesting!

Maybe the coolest part of it all to me anyway, was that they surrounded the cemetery with boxwoods, well, over 100 years later... the boxwoods are still there and HUGE, these things are 25 feet tall and have trunks a foot across... Also, apparently, when they were putting Williamsburg back together for the historical reenactment that they do there, they went to that plantation and took cuttings of THOSE boxwoods because they are the original type that dates back to colonial periods rather than the cross breeds that we have everywhere now.

 

[Bunnylady]

We looked up records, there are supposed to be 2 graveyards there, and the man who's kids are in the cemetery owned 30+ slaves, so we think maybe the other one is the slave cemetery. We would like to find that one as well if possible but don't know where to look or anything.

That could get tricky - at this stage, there might be depressions in the ground, but so many things can create depressions. Most if not all of the graves would most likely be unmarked. There might have been wooden markers at one point, but since the vast majority of slaves were illiterate, they might not have even bothered with that. I'm not even sure they'd have been given the dignity of wooden coffins.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Maybe the coolest part of it all to me anyway, was that they surrounded the cemetery with boxwoods, well, over 100 years later... the boxwoods are still there and HUGE, these things are 25 feet tall and have trunks a foot across... Also, apparently, when they were putting Williamsburg back together for the historical reenactment that they do there, they went to that plantation and took cuttings of THOSE boxwoods because they are the original type that dates back to colonial periods rather than the cross breeds that we have everywhere now.

Now that's cool!

 

[CapricornFarm]

Oh my, i just ran over my poor little Papillon with the Mule! He is old and has health issues so there is no point going to the vet. I was going to have him put down but DH says wait and see how he does.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Oh my, i just ran over my poor little Papillon with the Mule! He is old and has health issues so there is no point going to the vet. I was going to have him put down but DH says wait and see how he does.

Oh no! Did he just get hit with the body of it? (I meant the mule)

We had a terrier poodle cross get hit by a truck. Husband rushed him to the vet..he was ok and lived for years after. Our border collie dodged under the wheels of the tractor and I had to put him down.

 

[Kusanar]

Oh my, i just ran over my poor little Papillon with the Mule! He is old and has health issues so there is no point going to the vet. I was going to have him put down but DH says wait and see how he does.

My mom ran over a kitten in front of my brothers once, it was on top of her car tire and fell off when she started backing up... I can't even imagine.... How bad is he? If he's really hurting it would be kinder to put him down.

 

[CapricornFarm]

He is not yipping, and he can walk. But the tires definitely went over him. I thought it was just the gravel hump where they are putting in the electric and water. The blood is not coming out of his mouth any more. He went down to the shed and is curled up in the shade. I took him water with and without electrolytes. I considered giving him aspirin but to force it down his throat if he has injuries there would probably be worse. I just feel so guilty.

 

[Kusanar]

That could get tricky - at this stage, there might be depressions in the ground, but so many things can create depressions. Most if not all of the graves would most likely be unmarked. There might have been wooden markers at one point, but since the vast majority of slaves were illiterate, they might not have even bothered with that. I'm not even sure they'd have been given the dignity of wooden coffins.

Yeah, I know... I'm HOPING, that they took cuttings of the boxwoods at the other one and put some of them over there, then we can go back in winter and try and find more giant boxwoods...

The cemetery that we found is only listed to have 6 bodies, but we clearly found 8, I think that whoever listed it didn't know about fieldstone markers because there are 2 that have VERY clear depressions and have fieldstone that was PLANTED into the ground rather than just sitting on top as another big chunk of fieldstone on the other side of the cemetery is. The fieldstones are also kind of triangular and seem to be placed so that they are pointing at the body.

Oh, the largest headstone has some variation of a Claddagh on it. It has the hands holding each other and a crown, we couldn't find a heart on it, but we were scraping rotting leaves off of it with our hands to see that much. One of the babies had 2 sheep laying down on his stone (I think that one was a boy, I can't remember the name)

 

[Kusanar]

He is not yipping, and he can walk. But the tires definitely went over him. I thought it was just the gravel hump where they are putting in the electric and water. The blood is not coming out of his mouth any more. He went down to the shed and is curled up in the shade. I took him water with and without electrolytes. I considered giving him aspirin but to force it down his throat if he has injuries there would probably be worse. I just feel so guilty.

I wouldn't do asprin, it's a blood thinner, if he has internal injuries, even mild, the asprin could kill him.

Dogs are tough, he may pull through if he's still moving around. Just keep an eye on him for distended belly, any bad bruising, stuff that would indicate internal bleeding.