I have learned a lot about cemetery research
from a mysterious headstone that bears the name of my great-uncle James
McCaskey, who was killed in the Civil War. After much searching, I found this
marker in the same Pennsylvania cemetery where many of my other McCaskey
ancestors are buried. It reads:
James McCaskey
Born
April 12, 1839
Died
June 16, 1862
James Island, S.C.
Those details are all correct; the military
action on James island was the Battle of Secessionville. The problem is
that the notification of his death says that his body was never found. The
official records say that the Confederate troops buried the Union soldiers
killed in the battle (some 509 of them) in unmarked graves on the battlefield.
North Sewickley Cemetery records indicated that the headstone was placed in
1875, after Mrs. Jane McCaskey purchased three adjoining plots and ordered
three matching stones — one for her recently deceased husband John, one for
herself, and one for her missing eldest son James.
Sure enough, the marker next to the one for
James marks the grave of my great-grandmother Jane McCaskey. But on the far
side of her grave, the ground has been cut away, and a gravel road lies several
feet below the resulting ledge. So where is Great-Grandpa John?
There is no sign of him or his tombstone at all. Was he ever there? Did an
earthmover carry him away when the road was put in? Or is he in the plot marked
with his son's tombstone? At this point the solution to the problem
becomes too macabre to consider, so I am willing to accept what I THINK I know
without further investigation.
Lesson Number One: A tombstone does not always equal a real burial. Obviously,
James's headstone marks an empty grave, a not uncommon phenomenon during a war
that swallowed up so many young men on distant battlefields. The Grand Army of
the Republic honors James McCaskey's service every Memorial Day by placing a
flag on the grave site, but even their records stop short of stating that he is
actually buried there.
Lesson Number Two: The lack of a headstone does not necessarily
mean that no grave ever existed. As time passes, stones crumble, weeds take
over, land subsides, new demands for grave sites force owners to change the
layout of their cemetery plots. In this picture, you can see that Jane
McCaskey's stone now teeters dangerously close to the edge of the cut-away
bank. In fact, it is largely supported by the roots of the tree in view just
behind the stone. John's grave would have been on the far side, since wives
were nearly always buried to the left of their husbands. John has disappeared,
but we know from court records and other documents that he was buried in that
location in 1875.
Lesson Number Three: Burial
practices change over time. While I was planning this blog post, I received a
message from another genealogist, a distant cousin of my husband's, who had
found the graves of my husband's grandfather and great-grandfather. I was
astonished to learn that both men were buried in the same grave at St. Mary
Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio — one above the other. The cemetery records show
John Christoph Schreiber (1845-1889) in section A, lot 48 North
grave 4 E.D. (which stands for extra deep, or at about eight feet). His son,
John C. Schriber, Jr. (1867-1928) is in section A, lot 48 North, grave 4
O.T.(on top, or at about 4 feet).
Cemeteries can tell us a great deal about those whose
lives we are researching. Sometimes, perhaps, they tell us more than we really
wanted to know!
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