After seeing some neat posts about old cemeteries in the thread about the deaths of Lennie Baker and Dennis Greene of Sha Na Na, I thought I would start one about exploring old cemeteries and plots in Michigan and elsewhere. So people don't get the wrong idea, I don't think of this as creepy or disrespectful. I look at these cemeteries as a part of our history.
What is the oldest you have found? Have you seen any of famous people? What is the strangest you have seen or heard of?
Scattered all over cities, small towns and suburbs are small, old cemeteries that were started as local communities developed. Some of these communities began at a crossroads and either never grew into a town, got absorbed or disappeared. Most of the cemeteries were connected to a long gone church. Many of them contain the graves of the community founders and span a few generations. At one cemetery I have seen graves of a 1812 vet through to the present and the cemetery was no bigger than a couple of acres.
Michigan's population started to grow after the opening of the Erie Canal. The first group of migrants came from the East primarily New York, New Jersey and New England. These people were generally the founders of our small towns. Shortly later, immigrants started to arrive, Irish and Germans, then other groups. Looking at the family names can give an indication of which groups settled in different areas and the time period. Some of the old grave stones will have the person's place of birth. The last name on one old stone I saw was a Dutch name and the person died around 1840. Being curious, I did some checking and learned he came from The Hudson Valley area of New York. He was descendant from Dutch settlers from the mid 1600's.
In Missaukee, I was wandering through one a saw some old homemade markers poured of cement with the names scratched on it. Was the family too poor to buy a stone or was it meant to be temporary? I don't know.
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Exploring Cemeteries
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