Field Day 12

Some of you may recall my very first post on this blog, which told the story of Dr. Enoch and Phebe Chase Greene, the unfortunate couple who married in 1845 and had both died by 1852, after losing three children. At the time I wrote that post (February 2013!), I knew of only two gravestones belonging to the five members of the Greene family: one for Enoch Greene, and one for his wife, "Freddy and two infants." On Monday's dig, in the process of restoration work, the team discovered a gravestone belonging to Freddy buried beneath (or more likely, subsumed by) the tree. This gravestone is particularly significant because it provides us with the (previously unknown) year of Freddy's death. Given the fact that this date is not mentioned in the 1910 transcription of the cemetery, it's likely that this stone has been buried for more than 100 years.

Above, the team excavating the base of Freddy's gravestone. Laurie hopes to get the entire group of Greene gravestones - Phoebe's broken stone, Enoch's tilted one, and the newly found Freddy stone - repaired and reset in the spring. Given the progress the team has made in resetting stones just this fall, I'd say that it's a viable goal.

Meanwhile, back in the dump, the team made an unexpected find: a footstone! Given the way that footstones have been distributed and redistributed throughout the cemetery, the finding of this stone here does not necessarily mean that anyone was buried in this location. Like the many displaced footstones we have found, we'd like to match this one to its owner. The problem is, I don't know of anyone buried in the cemetery who has the initials R. S. Was the owner of the footstone moved, along with his/her headstone, to another cemetery? We know that this was a relatively common occurrence. Or was the headstone destroyed or rendered illegible? Judging by the material (marble), this stone likely dates to the 19th century. It's very similar in style to many other 19th-century footstones in the cemetery.

Other than the footstone, the finds made in the dump on Monday were pretty much typical. Harry, Margaret, and John took turns digging and screening the soil.

Here you can see some of the results of their work: glass (including a very fancy medicine bottle), ceramics, metal, shoe leather, shells, some copper wire and nails ...

And Margaret excavated this shoe. I'm no shoe expert, but I'm guessing it's late 19th or early 20th century. What do you think?